oshot

Fast, lightweight, cross-platform screenshot text extractor.
Capture any screen region, extract text, and decode QR/barcodes locally.

Select a screen region, run OCR or scan a QR/barcode, and copy the result to your clipboard. No uploads, no browser workflow, no bulky image editor. Useful for copying text from apps that block selection, extracting content from VMs or remote desktops, reading text in videos or slides, or decoding QR codes on screen.

Supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Demo

output.mp4

simplescreenrecorder-2026-01-04_16.07.31.mp4

Features

• Region selection with resize handles, full-screen select (Ctrl+A), and capture delay
• OCR via Tesseract with multiple language models and configurable segmentation mode
• In-app OCR model downloader (specify a GitHub link and model name)
• QR/barcode decoding via ZBar
• Editable OCR output before copying
• Annotation tools: arrow, line, rectangle, circle, filled shapes, numbered counters, text, freehand pencil
• Color picker with zoom loupe, undo support
• Really Customizable with Preferences window with light/dark/auto/classic or custom themes
• Font configuration, output filename format, behavior and rendering options
• Borderless overlay window, always on top

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+C	Copy selection as image
Ctrl+S	Save selection as PNG
Ctrl+A	Select full image
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+G	Toggle handles
Ctrl+E	Toggle text editing
Esc	Close

Installation

Linux

Note

For wayland platforms, grim and wl-clipboard are required for screen capture and clipboard support.

Download the package that fits your setup from the latest release page:

Package	Description
oshot-appimage-<version>.zip	Recommended. Self-contained, no system dependencies required
oshot-debian-package-<version>.deb	For Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives
oshot-linux-<version>.zip	Generic binary, requires dependencies to be installed

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S oshot-bin

---

Windows

Download oshot-windows-<version>.zip from the latest release page. Includes bundled English OCR data. Extract and run oshot.exe.

---

macOS

Download from the latest release page:

Package	Description
oshot-macos-arm64-<version>.zip	Apple Silicon
oshot-macos-x86_64-<version>.zip	Intel

Both include a .dmg bundle and bundled English OCR data.

Usage

oshot              # captures a screenshot and launches interactive overlay
oshot --tray       # start minimized to tray
oshot -f <path>    # open image file

Build from Source

Requires a C++20 compiler.

Dependencies

All platforms: glfw3, tesseract, leptonica, zbar, OpenGL, libpng

Linux extras: libx11, libxcb, libxrandr, gio-2.0, gtk+-3.0, libappindicator3 / ayatana-appindicator3

macOS frameworks: Cocoa, Metal, QuartzCore, CoreGraphics, IOKit

Windows: d3d11, dxgi, shcore, ws2_32

Ubuntu / Debian

sudo apt-get install -y \
  build-essential pkg-config cmake \
  libx11-dev libxcb1-dev libxrandr-dev \
  libglfw3-dev libpng-dev \
  libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev \
  libzbar-dev \
  libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S --needed \
  base-devel cmake \
  libx11 libxcb libxrandr \
  glfw libpng \
  tesseract leptonica \
  zbar \
  gtk3 libappindicator-gtk3

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install cmake glfw tesseract leptonica zbar

Windows (MSYS2 UCRT64)

pacman -S --needed \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-ninja \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cmake \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-glfw \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-libpng \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-tesseract-ocr \
  mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-zbar

Build

git clone https://github.com/Toni500github/oshot/
cd oshot
make
./build/release/oshot

Or with CMake + Ninja:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
ninja
./oshot

Troubleshooting

Windows: flicker on launch / app fails to start

Download MesaForWindows, extract opengl32.dll beside oshot.exe, and relaunch.

Linux: missing/mismatch runtime libraries

Use the AppImage build.

Linux: clipboard issues

Run oshot --tray and launch captures from the tray icon instead.

NixOS: Tesseract can't find language data

TESSDATA_PREFIX must be set explicitly. If tesseract is in environment.systemPackages:

environment.sessionVariables = {
    "TESSDATA_PREFIX" = "${pkgs.tesseract}/share/tessdata";
};

If it is in users.users.<user>.packages, use home-manager instead:

systemd.user.sessionVariables = {
    "TESSDATA_PREFIX" = "${pkgs.tesseract}/share/tessdata";
};

Note

The home-manager solution requires systemd. If echo $TESSDATA_PREFIX returns a valid path but OCR still fails, check ocr-path in your config file.

Still broken?

Open an issue with your OS version, the exact error message, and steps to reproduce.

Contributing

Bug reports, focused pull requests, and feature proposals (open an issue first) are welcome: https://github.com/Toni500github/oshot/issues