Search your screen.
Press a hotkey and type a few letters. SnapGrep finds the matching text anywhere on your screen, highlights it in place, and copies, opens, or calls it. Your hands never leave the keyboard.
A small menu-bar helper for macOS. Whatever you're looking at (an email, a website, a video call, a photo, a scanned PDF), SnapGrep reads the text in it, even where it can't be selected, and hands it over ready to use: links, phone numbers, addresses, codes, file names. ⌃⌥Space is all it takes. And when the text isn't there yet, SnapGrep keeps watch: set an alert and get a ping the moment it appears.
pids_limit line from the page lands in vim over SSH, and an IP from ip a output drops into the next command.git clone.Find text and use it from the keyboard.
Invoke
⌃⌥Space captures the window in front of you. The capture is shown frozen, so the highlights hold still even while the live window keeps moving. ⌘→ widens the search to the whole screen.
Find
Type a few letters of the link, the number, or the word you're after. SnapGrep narrows everything it can see down to what you mean, and every occurrence lights up right on the screen.
Act
↩ copies. ⌘↩ runs the action for that result: it opens the link, calls the number, shows the file, drafts the mail, translates the sentence, pastes the match straight into the app you came from, or moves the pointer there and clicks it. Need more than one word? The selection grows word by word, right from the keyboard.
Faster than reaching for the mouse.
Selecting text means aiming a drag and switching windows. Typing three letters of it is faster, for any text on screen. And it works even where selection is impossible: videos, photos, scans, and calls.
A tracking number in an email
Selectable, sure, but typing four digits still beats aiming a drag across it.
A button across three displays
Type its label instead of hunting with the mouse; SnapGrep moves the pointer there, or clicks it for you.
A code straight into the form
The code on screen, your cursor in the field. One keystroke pastes it there.
A path in a build log
One keystroke reveals the file in Finder.
A link in a video
The tutorial flashes a URL you can't select. Type three letters of it and it opens.
A number on a call
The shared slide shows their phone number. ⌘↩ dials it.
A Wi-Fi password in a photo
The key sits on the router label, photographed. SnapGrep copies it out of the picture.
An address in a scanned PDF
Scans are pictures of text. SnapGrep reads them like text.
A sentence in another language
Translate what's on screen, on your Mac, without any external service. Pick your pair once; SnapGrep detects the direction.
It knows what it grabbed.
SnapGrep classifies what it reads: a link behaves like a link, a phone number like a phone number. The badge on each result shows what you're about to use, and how often it appears on screen. A filter menu beside the search field lists every type with its shortcut key, so narrowing to one type works by mouse as well.
open in browser
call
compose mail
reveal in Finder
copy
translate · AI fix: clean up recognition slips, then copyon-device · macOS 26 + Apple Intelligence
decoded to its content: open the link or copy the payloadlisted as soon as the panel opens · ⌘0 shows codes only
copyIPv4 and IPv6
copy
copy
copy
Add your own types as regular expressions with their own actions:
a ticket key \b[A-Z]{2,}-\d+\b that opens
https://jira.example.com/browse/{match}, or a shell command
that receives the match as $SNAPGREP_MATCH, so the match is
passed as data rather than inserted into the command text.
SnapGrep can also keep watch.
Describe a string, optionally narrowed to a type like URLs or QR codes. Pick where to look: a window, an app, one display, or everywhere. SnapGrep checks quietly in the background, and the moment the text appears you get a sound, a notification, or a shell command with the match in hand.
The build turns green
Watch the CI window for "passed" and keep working; the ping arrives when it's done.
Your name in a busy channel
An alert on the chat window means you can stop scanning it. Mentioned? You'll hear it.
The queue finally moves
"Your turn", "Download complete", "2 tickets left": whatever the page will eventually say, the alert catches it the moment it shows.
Run several alerts at once, each with its own scope, action, and check interval. Each fires once per appearance and re-arms only after the match is gone. Checks run on your Mac like everything else, and watching a single window usually rides the Accessibility fast path at milliseconds per check.
Exact text when available,
with screen processing on your Mac.
Straight from the app
Apps that can hand over their text do, through the Accessibility interface, the same channel screen readers use. The text arrives exactly as the app holds it, with no recognition errors.
Straight from the pixels
SnapGrep reads photos, videos, calls, and scans with Apple's built-in text recognition, entirely on your Mac. This works where the text is visible but cannot be selected.
Recognition and translation run fully on-device. Screen content stays on your Mac; nothing in the pipeline touches the network. Optional crash reports carry error metadata only, never screen content, and can be switched off.
The full search flow has keyboard shortcuts.
Capture, search, selection, and actions all have shortcuts. You can use SnapGrep without the mouse.
Buy once. Keep it forever.
One purchase buys a year of updates and software that stays yours when the year is over.
Yours, outright
One purchase covers three Macs. After you enter the key, SnapGrep runs offline. Licensing does not use DRM or require an account.
A year of updates
Every release for twelve months from purchase, features and bug fixes alike. Critical security fixes keep shipping beyond that year.
The installed version does not expire
When your update year ends, the installed version remains active on every Mac you licensed.
Renew at your pace
Another year of updates is €19 / $19, half the price of a new license. Renew whenever the current releases tempt you: skipping a year is fine, and picking it back up later is, too.
Get SnapGrep.
Download it, press ⌃⌥Space, and search your screen. The free 14-day trial does not require an account. A license is a one-time purchase that covers three Macs and includes a year of updates.
Get update news.
A few messages a year when a new version ships.
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