TextSniper

TextSniper is screen OCR with one gesture. Trigger it with a shortcut, draw a rectangle over the text you want, and it's recognised and copied. It works on things you normally can't select: scanned PDFs, screenshots, error dialogs, YouTube frames, locked-down apps. It also reads QR codes and barcodes, can speak the captured text aloud, and handles multiple languages — all on-device, no network.

Why it makes the list

It's a tiny, sharply focused native utility that removes a genuinely annoying task — retyping text a computer is displaying but won't let you copy. It's fast enough that it becomes a reflex, and it earned a Mac App Store Editors' Choice for good reason.

Standout features

• Draw-to-capture OCR from any pixels on screen

• QR and barcode decoding

• Text-to-speech of whatever you just grabbed

• Multi-line and multi-language recognition, fully offline

• Keyboard-triggered, with a menu-bar presence and nothing else

Pricing

A one-time $9.99 purchase on the Mac App Store.