How to find a screenshot by the text in it on a Mac

You remember what the screenshot said, not its name. How Spotlight and Live Text search images, where they fall short, and how Kempt’s Ask finds it.

Last checked 2 min read

Ask · ⌃⌥Space
the screenshot of my hotel booking↩

Taken on 14 August 2026.

Booking.com Hotel Reservation 14 August 2026.pngScreenshots

In short

Type a word that appears in the screenshot into Spotlight (Command-Space): since macOS Ventura, Spotlight can find text inside images with Live Text, but it indexes them in the background and can miss some.Kempt reads the words on every screenshot it names and keeps them in its own index on your Mac, so Ask (⌃⌥Space) finds “the screenshot of my flight booking” by its words or its meaning, and the name already tells you which one it is.

Without any app

  1. Search Spotlight with a word from it

    Press Command-Space and type a distinctive word: a booking number, a site, a name. Spotlight can match text in images through Live Text, depending on your Spotlight settings and whether the image has been indexed yet.

  2. Narrow by kind and date in Finder

    In a Finder window press Command-F, set Kind to Image and Created date to the days you remember, then sort by date.

  3. Check with Live Text

    Open a candidate in Preview or Quick Look: you can select, copy or look up the text in the picture to confirm it’s the right one.

  4. Name it once found

    Rename it after what it shows, “2026-08 Hotel booking Lisbon.png”, so the next search works on the name.

With Kempt

  1. 1

    Its words, indexed on your Mac

    Kempt reads the text on each screenshot it names and adds it to its search index, so Ask finds it from a word on the screen, the site or the app.

  2. 2

    Ask it the way you remember it

    Press ⌃⌥Space and type or say “the screenshot of my flight booking”. Ask searches by meaning in English, French and Spanish, and narrows by folder and time.

  3. 3

    A name you recognise in the results

    Results read “Booking.com Hotel Reservation 14 August 2026”, not IMG_4471.PNG, so you see the right screenshot before opening it.

Names, files and finds your documents with Apple’s on-device model. Processed on your Mac.

$27 once, 14 days freeRuns on every Apple silicon MacA question? Ask a person

Questions people ask

Can Spotlight search the text in screenshots?

Yes, since macOS Ventura, using Live Text. It runs in the background and doesn’t always index every image, so a screenshot can be missing from the results.

How do I find a screenshot I took yesterday?

Open Finder › Recents, or search with Kind is Image and Created date yesterday. If it was saved to the Desktop, its name starts with “Screenshot” and that date.

Can I copy the text from a screenshot on a Mac?

Yes. Open it in Preview or Quick Look and select the text with the pointer, thanks to Live Text.

Which screenshots does Kempt read?

The ones in the folders it watches (Downloads, the Desktop and a folder you choose) and in the folders it files into. Ask’s “Where is my…” also finds other files on the Mac by name.

Is the text of my screenshots sent anywhere?

No. Reading, indexing and search happen on your Mac, with no account.

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