Copy the text you can't select.

Nab freezes your Mac's screen so you can copy text and click links in screen shares, paused videos, images and apps that won't let you select. One shortcut, all on your Mac.

Coming soon to the Mac App Store

Free · macOS 15 or later · Apple Silicon

Consensus in practice

Raft elects a leader per term
Quorum = ⌊n / 2⌋ + 1 nodes must agree
Logs replicate before commit

Where it helps

Screen shares

They paste a link in their slides. You can't click it.

How to click links in a screen share

Videos

The code is right there in the video. You can't copy it.

How to copy text from a video on Mac

Images

Text baked into a picture, a chart or a scanned page.

How to copy text from an image on Mac

QR codes

A QR code on your screen, and your phone is in another room.

How to scan a QR code on your Mac screen

How it works

Press ⌘⇧2. Your screen freezes. Videos keep playing underneath.
Drag over any text. It's copied the moment you let go. Links and QR codes are clickable.
Paste it anywhere. Press Esc to unfreeze.

Everything stays on your Mac.

Text is recognised on your Mac by Apple's built-in Live Text. No cloud, no account.
One permission: Screen Recording. Nab takes a still picture when you press the shortcut. It never records video or audio.
Nothing is saved. The frozen picture is gone when you unfreeze.
Nab can't go online. The Mac's app sandbox blocks it, and you can check that yourself.

The details

⌘⇧2 Freeze the screen (you can change it)
Drag or double-click to select
⌘A Copy everything on this display
⌘L Keep or remove line breaks
Esc Unfreeze
Every display freezes at once
Right-click the menu bar icon to freeze

Questions

Can't macOS already do this with Live Text?

Partly. Live Text works on images in Photos, Preview, Quick Look and Safari, and on paused videos in Apple's own players, like QuickTime Player and Safari. It doesn't reach screen shares in Zoom, Teams or Meet, videos in Chrome or VLC, or text drawn inside other apps. Nab uses the same Apple engine on everything on your screen, with one shortcut.

Is Nab free?

Yes. No ads, no account, nothing to sign up for. If Nab ever gets a paid version, everyone who downloaded it before then keeps it free.

Why does Nab need Screen Recording?

It's the only way a Mac app can see what's on your screen. Nab takes one still picture per display when you freeze, and recognises the text on your Mac (on-device OCR).

Why does macOS ask again every month?

That's macOS policy for every app that captures the screen, not something Nab chooses.

Does it work on Intel Macs?

No. Nab needs Apple Silicon and macOS 15 or later.

Which languages does it read?

English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malay. Older macOS versions may read a few fewer. There's nothing to set up: Nab reads them automatically.

Your screen is full of text. Now all of it is yours.

Coming soon to the Mac App Store