I copy text from images and videos with PowerToys Text Extractor, and retyping feels ridiculous now
The author describes using PowerToys Text Extractor, a free OCR feature in Microsoft PowerToys, to copy text from images, videos, and locked applications on Windows. The tool is activated with the Win + Shift + T shortcut, automatically placing extracted text on the clipboard without additional prompts. The author finds the utility dramatically faster than manually retyping text and recommends it for everyday screenshot workflows.
- ▪PowerToys Text Extractor is a free OCR tool included in Microsoft PowerToys that can extract text from images, videos, PDFs, and apps that block selection.
- ▪The default shortcut to activate the extractor is Win + Shift + T, though users may need to reassign it if it conflicts with other utilities like the Snipping Tool.
- ▪Extracted text is copied directly to the clipboard without a confirmation screen, allowing immediate use in other applications.
- ▪The author reports that the tool eliminates the need to manually retype text, improving speed and accuracy when handling screenshots or locked content.
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | XDA Developers |
| Canonical URL | https://www.xda-developers.com/powertoys-text-extractor-copy-text-images-videos/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:30:22 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-06-14T22:13:02.798Z |
| Last seen | 2026-06-14T22:13:02.798Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | -uRyyjYob-ih |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": "1", "name": "Home", "item": "https://www.xda-developers.com/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position":"2", "name": "Windows", "item": "https://www.xda-developers.com/windows/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position":"3", "name": "I copy text from images and videos with PowerToys Text Extractor, and retyping feels ridiculous now", "item": "https://www.xda-developers.com/powertoys-text-extractor-copy-text-images-videos/" } ] } I copy text from images and videos with PowerToys Text Extractor, and retyping feels ridiculous now By Judy Sanhz Published Jun 14, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT Judy is an author at XDA with over a decade of experience writing about digital media.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at XDA Developers.
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