Best OCR Chrome Extensions in 2026
Updated July 7, 2026 · Every claim below is checkable against each tool's own store listing or documentation
Full disclosure: ShotMagic is our own product. Comparison pages written by vendors usually hide that — we'd rather tell you upfront and stick to facts you can verify in two clicks: where each tool runs its OCR, what it costs, and what it's genuinely best at. If a competitor fits your use case better, we say so.
The comparison at a glance
| Extension | Where OCR runs | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ShotMagic | 100% on your device — the engine ships inside the extension, works with Wi-Fi off | Free tier · Pro $9.99 one-time | Sensitive or internal content, offline work, no-account privacy |
| Copyfish | In the cloud — captures are sent to the ocr.space API for recognition (per its own docs) | Free | Casual OCR when uploading your screenshot is acceptable |
| Project Naptha | In your browser, on images already embedded in the page | Free | Selecting text straight inside in-page images |
| Selectext | — | Free tier + subscription | Copying code and text from video lectures (YouTube, Udemy) |
ShotMagic — the private, offline one
ShotMagic bundles the entire recognition engine inside the extension. Draw a box over anything you can see — an image, a paused video frame, a chart, a page that blocks text selection — and the text lands on your clipboard without a single byte leaving your computer. Turn off Wi-Fi and it keeps working. No account, no analytics, and 50+ languages are built in with no language packs to download.
- Good: the only option here where captures never touch a server — a hard requirement if you handle internal dashboards, contracts, or anything under NDA.
- Good: unlimited single-capture OCR is free forever, no sign-up.
- Honest trade-off: the download is bigger than cloud-based rivals because the engine ships inside.
- Honest trade-off: batch OCR (up to 100 images per page), TXT/CSV/ZIP export and long searchable history are paid — a $9.99 one-time purchase, no subscription. If you need free batch OCR and don't mind the cloud, Copyfish may suit you better.
Add ShotMagic to Chrome — free
Copyfish — the long-standing free default
Copyfish has been around since 2015, comes from the team behind the ocr.space OCR API, and is the extension most people land on first. It's free, mature, and also available for Firefox and Edge.
- Good: free, battle-tested, hundreds of thousands of users.
- Know before you install: recognition happens in the cloud — your capture is uploaded to the ocr.space API, which its own documentation explains. Fine for public content; think twice for anything sensitive, and it needs an internet connection.
Project Naptha — the in-page magician
Project Naptha takes a different approach: instead of capturing a region, it makes text inside images on the page selectable, so you can highlight and copy as if it were normal text. When it works, it feels like magic.
- Good: zero-step selection on embedded images; free.
- Know before you install: it only works on images already embedded in the page — no video frames, no PDFs, no region capture — and the project has not seen a meaningful update in years.
Selectext — the video specialist
Selectext is purpose-built for one job: copying text and code from videos on platforms like YouTube and Udemy, keeping code indentation intact. If your OCR need is specifically "text inside video lectures", it's worth a look; for general screenshots it's not the tool.
Which one should you pick?
- You handle anything you wouldn't paste into a random website — internal tools, client data, contracts: pick ShotMagic. On-device OCR isn't a feature here, it's the architecture.
- You occasionally grab text from public images and want free batch: Copyfish is the sensible default if cloud upload is acceptable to you.
- You mostly copy text out of images embedded in articles: try Project Naptha first — when the image is in the page, nothing is faster.
- You live in video courses: Selectext is built exactly for that.
Why "where OCR runs" is the question that matters
Speed and privacy in OCR extensions come from the same design decision. A cloud extension uploads your capture, waits for the API round-trip, then returns text — so its speed depends on your connection, and its privacy depends on the vendor's servers. An on-device engine skips the upload entirely: recognition starts the instant you release the mouse, works on a plane, and the image provably never leaves your machine. That's the whole reason we built ShotMagic — and it's a claim you can test yourself in ten seconds: turn off Wi-Fi and take a capture.
Questions or corrections
Spotted something outdated or factually wrong about any tool above? Email [email protected] and we'll fix it — this page is only useful if it stays accurate.