iPhoneiOS 27Live TextOCRtroubleshooting

Copy Text From Image Not Working on iPhone? Live Text Fixes

Name: Pizazoo
Author: Pizazoo

Can't copy or search text in iPhone photos? Check the Live Text switch, languages, image quality and Photos indexing, plus fixes for iPad and Mac.

October 6, 20268 min read

Muhammed BasilFounder & maker of Pizazoo

If you can't copy text from an image on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Language & Region and make sure Live Text is turned on. If it is, the text itself is usually the problem: Live Text reads only the languages on Apple's list (Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi are not on it), and small, blurry or low-contrast text may not be detected at all. If copying works but Photos search no longer finds words, Photos is most likely still rebuilding its search index, which runs while your iPhone is locked and charging.

The fixes below for Live Text not working follow Apple's guides for iOS 27; the settings are the same in iOS 26 and on iPad. There's a short Mac section at the end.

Why can't I copy text from an image on my iPhone?

Match what you see to the most likely cause:

What happens	Likely cause	Fix
No text button on any photo	Live Text is off	Turn it on in Language & Region
Works in Photos, not in Camera	Camera's switch is off	Settings > Camera > Show Detected Text
Works on some images only	Unsupported language, or text too small or blurry	Check the language list, recapture larger
Copying works, Photos search finds nothing	Photos is still indexing	Leave iPhone locked and charging overnight
The screenshot is black or blank	The app blocks screen capture	Nothing to read; see below
Spotlight skips photo text	Photos is hidden from Search	Settings > Search > Photos

Is Live Text turned on?

Apple asks you to make sure Live Text is "turned on for all supported languages" before using it (Apple):

Open Settings and tap General.
Tap Language & Region.
Turn on Live Text.

Then open a screenshot in Photos and tap the text button in the corner of the image. Apple's iOS 27 guide calls it the Detect Text button, while its support article calls it the Live Text button (Apple). Touch and hold the highlighted text and tap Copy Text or Select All. If the button never appears, iPhone hasn't found text it can read in that image.

The Camera has its own switch. If Live Text works on saved photos but not when you point the camera at text, go to Settings > Camera and turn on Show Detected Text (Apple).

Does my iPhone or iPad support Live Text?

Almost certainly, if it runs current software. Apple says Live Text needs an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later with iOS 15 or later. On iPad, it lists iPad (8th generation) or later, iPad mini (5th generation) or later, iPad Air (3rd generation) or later, every iPad Pro 11-inch and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) or later, with iPadOS 15.1 or later. Live Text in videos needs iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 (Apple).

iOS 27 and iOS 26 run only on iPhone 11 and later plus iPhone SE (2nd and 3rd generation) (Apple, iOS 27, Apple, iOS 26), and the oldest iPad that runs iPadOS 27 is the iPad (9th generation) (Apple). So on an up-to-date device, hardware is not the problem. On an iPhone 8 or iPhone X, Live Text isn't available at all.

Is the text in a supported language?

Apple has added languages since Live Text arrived in iOS 15, so older lists are out of date. The current list is: Cantonese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese (Apple Feature Availability).

Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and Greek are not on it. If the text in your screenshot uses one of those scripts, Live Text won't select it however clear it is. Our free Image to Text tool runs OCR in your browser, keeps the image on your device, and supports 13 languages including Arabic and Hindi. Disclosure: we make Pizazoo and this free tool.

Is the text large and sharp enough?

Apple doesn't publish a minimum text size, but detection fails more often on text that is tiny, blurry, low-contrast or set in a decorative font. With screenshots, the usual culprits are:

A screenshot of a screenshot, or one that came through a messaging app, which may have shrunk and compressed it.
Small text captured zoomed out. Zoom in (pinch, or use the app's text size) before you take the screenshot.
A frame from a moving video. Pause the video first; Apple's steps for video start with pausing it.

If the image itself looks soft, see why your screenshot is blurry.

Why can't I search words in Photos anymore?

Photos search does support text: Apple lists "Text (an email address or phone number, for example)" among the things you can search for (Apple). When it stops finding words you know are there, the usual reason is that the search index isn't finished.

Photos builds that index on the device, and after a major update or a move to a new iPhone, rebuilding it can take a long time. In its article on pet detection, Apple says the iPhone "must be locked and connected to power" for the analysis, which can "take up to a few days" (Apple). After iOS 18, people saw "Indexing your library" or "Some results may not appear" at the bottom of search results, with a note that Photos organizes items when the iPhone is "locked, charging, and connected to Wi-Fi" (Felix Wong, TidBITS Talk). Some take far longer: BGR reported iPhones still indexing three months after iOS 18 arrived.

To let it finish:

Install the latest update in Settings > General > Software Update (Apple).
Plug the iPhone in, stay on Wi-Fi and leave it locked overnight. Large libraries may need several nights.
Check where you're searching. Apple notes you can search the whole Library or Collections tab, or "within a specific album," which limits results to that album, and a filter such as Favorites or Edited narrows them further.

Searching from the Home Screen is a separate switch. Apple says Spotlight can find "text in your photos using Live Text" (Apple). If photo text never shows up there, go to Settings > Search, tap Photos and turn on Show App in Search. Because that text comes from Live Text, the Live Text switch and language list above apply to search too.

Is it Live Text or Visual Look Up?

They live in different buttons and do different jobs. Live Text is the text button in the corner of the image. Visual Look Up is the Info button with stars: tap it, then Look Up, and iPhone identifies landmarks, statues, art, plants, pets, books and food (Apple). It doesn't select text, and it has its own, shorter language list. If you only see the starred Info button, use the text button instead.

On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, the full-screen view that opens after you take a screenshot can also act on its text; how to copy text from a screenshot on iPhone covers that route.

Why is there no text in my screenshot of an app?

Because the app kept it out. Streaming apps and some banking and payment apps protect their screens, so the screenshot comes out black or blank, and there is nothing for Live Text to read. Apple also notes that some apps don't allow screen recording (Apple). The reasons and what you can do are in iPhone screenshot not working.

Could iCloud Photos be the problem?

Possibly. With Optimize iPhone Storage on, which is the default, your iPhone keeps "storage-saving versions" while the full-resolution originals stay in iCloud (Apple). Apple doesn't say how Live Text handles those versions, but if a screenshot looks soft at first, make sure you're online and give it a moment to load the full image before trying again. If you have the space, Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Photos > iPhone Storage > Download and Keep Originals keeps full-size copies on the iPhone.

What if Live Text still doesn't work?

Toggle it. Turn Live Text off and back on in Language & Region.
Restart your iPhone (Apple).
Update iOS, as above.
Reset all settings as a last resort. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings. Apple says "no data or media are deleted," but network settings, the keyboard dictionary, location and privacy settings and Apple Pay cards are reset or removed (Apple).
Use another reader. The Shortcuts app's Extract Text from Image action, covered in copy text from a screenshot on iPhone, or the free Image to Text tool.

If none of that helps, contact Apple Support.

Is Live Text not working on your Mac?

The same ideas apply, with different switches:

Check the setting. Open System Settings > General > Language & Region. Apple says the Live Text options there are available for some primary languages (Apple); if you see them, make sure they're on.
In Preview, turn on text selection. If you can't select text in an image, choose Tools > Text Selection (Apple).
In Photos, Control-click the text and choose Copy Text (Apple).
For search, give Photos time. Photos for Mac can "search for text within photos" (Apple), and Apple's pet-detection article says Photos on a Mac analyzes the library "as long as you aren't using the app" (Apple). Quit Photos and leave the Mac awake for a while.

More in copy text from a screenshot on Mac and search text inside screenshots on Mac.

Can Pizazoo search screenshot text when Photos can't?

Disclosure: we make Pizazoo. It won't repair Live Text, but it doesn't depend on Photos' search index either. Pizazoo for iPhone and iPad is free on the App Store (iOS 17 or later) and keeps its own index of your screenshots: it reads the text in each one on the device as it imports them, and it picks up new screenshots when you open the app. A screenshot Pizazoo has processed is searchable in the app, and in iOS Spotlight, even if Photos is still indexing. It detects each screenshot's language automatically, and the languages it can read depend on your iOS version. The Mac app does the same in its free tier. See OCR text search and how to search text inside screenshots on iPhone.