OwOCR

About

OwOCR is a text recognition tool that continuously scans for images and performs optical character recognition (OCR) on them. Its main focus is Japanese, but it works for many other languages. On macOS, you download the dmg, drag the owocr app to the Applications folder, and grant the Accessibility and Screen Capture permissions when prompted the first time it starts. A tray icon appears in the menu bar, and a Log Viewer window shows informational messages.

By default, OwOCR monitors the clipboard for images and writes recognized text back to the clipboard, though this can be changed in the configuration. From the menu bar icon, you can change the engine, pause or unpause, change the screen capture area, take a screenshot of the selected screen or window, open the configuration, and reopen the log viewer. The macOS version includes Google Lens, Bing, Apple Vision, and Apple Live Text, so no additional installation is needed. Keyboard shortcuts can also be set for pausing, switching engines, taking screenshots, and changing the capture area.

OwOCR can capture specific screen areas or windows, and a furigana filter works by default with Japanese text, both vertical and horizontal. The website recommends pairing an online engine like Google Lens with a local engine such as Apple Live Text, so only changed areas are sent to the online service. Settings are stored in ~/.config/owocr_config.ini.