ScreenLens for macOS

Support

Last updated: 20 September 2026

ScreenLens reads whatever you select on screen and offers the one action you were about to look for. Press ⇧⌘2, drag a rectangle, take the result.

If something does not behave, the answer is probably below. If it is not, write — a person reads that mailbox.

Getting started

Requires	macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon or Intel
Where it lives	The menu bar. There is no Dock icon and no main window.
Permission needed	Screen Recording, and nothing else
Account needed	None, ever

Press ⇧⌘2, drag across anything — a paragraph, a table, a QR code, a block of code — and release. A small panel appears beside the selection with the actions that fit what it found. Esc cancels at any point, and a click without a drag cancels too.

Screen Recording permission

macOS requires it before any app can read the screen, including a region you selected yourself. ScreenLens asks on your first capture, not at launch, and captures only the rectangle you drag. Nothing is captured while the app is idle and no stream is ever left open.

If captures fail after an update or a reinstall, macOS ties the permission to the app's code signature, so an older entry can remain switched on in System Settings while every capture comes back empty. The fix:

The shortcut

The default is ⇧⌘2 and it can be changed in Settings → General. ScreenLens will not take over the macOS screenshot shortcuts.

If a combination refuses to record, another application already holds it. The window server decides who wins, and ScreenLens cannot see the full list of what other apps have claimed — the sandbox does not allow it. Pick a different combination.

What the actions do

Text	Copy, Copy Clean Text (joins the lines OCR broke), Translate, Summarize
Table	Copy Table, CSV, TSV, Markdown
Code	Copy Code, Without Line Numbers, Explain
QR or barcode	Open Link, Copy Link, Copy Content
Link, e-mail, phone	Open, Copy, Compose Email
No text found	Copy Image, Save Image

A link is never opened on its own. The panel shows the real domain first, and it opens only when you press the button.

⌘C runs the primary action, Return the same, Esc closes the panel.

Known limits in 1.0

• Table recognition needs macOS 26. The structured document recognizer does not exist on macOS 15, so on those systems a table is read as plain text and the CSV, TSV and Markdown actions do not appear.
• A selection stays on the display it started on. A drag that runs onto a second screen is trimmed at the boundary.
• Multi-column text is read across the columns, not down each one.
• Translation may need a download. The first translation into a given language can prompt macOS to fetch its language assets; ScreenLens shows a preparing state while that happens.
• Summarize, Explain and Clean Up need Apple Intelligence. On a Mac that cannot run it, those actions are not offered rather than shown broken. Everything else works without them.
• The magnifier shows a snapshot. It samples the screen as it was the instant the overlay appeared, so content animating underneath is magnified a moment late.

History and privacy

History keeps the recognized text, the content type, the date and the actions you used — on your Mac, for seven days by default. Screenshot previews are off by default; turning them on stores the images locally and nowhere else. Retention, Pause and Clear are all in Settings → History.

The app has no network entitlement, which means it cannot transmit anything at all. The full account is in the privacy policy.

Trial, purchase and restore

The free evaluation is 20 captures with every feature enabled. ScreenLens Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.

Bought it already, on this Mac or another one signed in to the same Apple Account? Settings → About → Restore Purchases.

Refunds are handled by Apple, not by us: reportaproblem.apple.com.

Contact

Bug reports, questions, and anything this page does not answer: