9 ways to search your screenshots on a Mac

How you search your screenshots on a Mac depends on what you remember about the one you want. A word in it, roughly when you took it, and which app it came from each point to a different tool. This page covers nine ways: four built into macOS and five apps, with what each one finds, where it stops and when it fits.

I checked each app’s own site or manual on 2 October 2026, and the prices below are as of that date. The macOS steps follow Apple’s guides for macOS Tahoe 26. I haven’t run them on macOS 27 yet, so menus and results may differ there. DejaShot is one of the nine, and it’s ours, so weigh that section accordingly.

What are the ways to search screenshots on a Mac?

The short version. For a word you remember now and then, Spotlight. To see every screenshot by date, the Finder. If you already use Raycast, its text: filter. If you remember what a screenshot was about but not its words, ScreenVault. If you search screenshots every week, or you remember the app a new one came from, DejaShot.

How do you search screenshots with Spotlight and Live Text?

Press ⌘Space and type a word you remember seeing in the screenshot. Apple’s iMac guide for macOS Tahoe 26 says that with Live Text, Spotlight can search for text in images, in select languages. Put kind:images in front of the word to keep the results to pictures, and on macOS Tahoe 26 press ⌘2 to show only files.

It needs no setup, and it stops in three places. Spotlight finds only what it has indexed, and Apple says a full pass can take hours or even days on macOS 26. It skips folders listed under Search Privacy. And it reads only the languages Live Text supports. Results can also vary between Macs: in August 2025, The Eclectic Light Company found text from images on one Mac but not on another running the same macOS 15.

The full walkthrough is in the guide to searching the text in screenshots, and Spotlight not finding screenshots covers the fixes.

How do you list every screenshot in the Finder?

Screenshots macOS takes carry a hidden attribute, kMDItemIsScreenCapture, and the Finder can search for it. Apple doesn’t document the attribute, but several guides that rank for this question, such as AddictiveTips’ in June 2026, describe the same route:

1. Open a Finder window and choose File › Find, or press ⌘F.
2. Choose This Mac to search everywhere, or the folder you want.
3. Type kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 into the search field and press Return.
4. Switch to List view and sort by date to put the newest or oldest first.
5. To keep the search, click Save. Apple describes a saved search as a Smart Folder that updates itself as new files match.

I haven’t run these steps for this page, so treat them as the route those guides describe, not a tested recipe. This finds screenshots, not the words inside them. Finder searches use the same index as Spotlight, so they share its gaps, and a screenshot from another capture app may not carry the attribute. A Smart Folder with Kind is Image and a date range catches those. Finding an old screenshot on a Mac walks through it, along with the Terminal version.

Can the Photos app search your screenshots?

Only the ones in your Photos library. Apple’s Photos guide for macOS Tahoe 26 says you can “search for text within photos to quickly find receipts, documents, and more”: click the search field in the toolbar, or press ⌘F, and type. The same guide lists Screenshots among the media types you can browse.

The catch is where Mac screenshots go. Apple says they’re saved to the Desktop by default, as files, so a screenshot taken on your Mac isn’t in Photos unless you import it. Photos is the right place for screenshots that reached it from your other devices, if you use iCloud Photos, or ones you’ve added yourself. For screenshots on the Desktop or in a folder, use one of the other ways. Where screenshots go on a Mac explains how to change that folder.

Can Shortcuts search the text in screenshots?

Partly. The Shortcuts app has an action called Extract Text from Image, which reads the text in a picture with the same technology as Live Text. Matthew Cassinelli’s guide to the action gives a short example: Get Latest Screenshot, Extract Text from Image, Choose from List and Copy to Clipboard copy just the line you want out of your newest screenshot.

To search a folder, you’d build a loop yourself: Get Contents of Folder, Repeat with Each, Extract Text from Image, and an If action that checks whether the text contains your word. It reads every image again each time it runs, so expect it to take longer as the folder grows, and it’s yours to maintain. I haven’t built and run this one, so check the action names in the Shortcuts action list on your Mac. For one screenshot you already have, copying text from a screenshot shows quicker ways with Preview and Live Text.

Which apps search screenshots?

These five search the text in screenshots, each in its own way. Every claim below comes from the app’s own site or manual on 2 October 2026.

Raycast’s Search Screenshots

Raycast is a launcher, and Search Screenshots is one of its commands. It reads the text in your screenshots with on-device OCR and searches it with filters: text: for the words in the image, name: for the file name and date: for when, in plain words. By default it looks in the system screenshot location, CleanShot X’s folder and the Desktop, and it also finds screen recordings. Raycast is free for personal use, and its pricing page says the free plan covers all built-in extensions. If you already use Raycast, try it first. The Raycast comparison goes into detail.

ScreenVault

ScreenVault, from Evolute, is a Mac app that searches screenshots by their text and by meaning, so you can type something like “receipts from June”. It reads text with Apple’s on-device recognition, watches the folders you choose, and lists app names and websites among the things it searches. It also suggests file names for review and finds near-duplicates. It says screenshots and its index stay on your Mac, and its meaning-based search is optional. It needs macOS 14 or later and costs $39.99 in the US as a one-time purchase after a 30-day trial, which its site calls an introductory price.

ScreenFloat

ScreenFloat is a capture tool that floats screenshots above your windows and keeps them in a Shots Browser. Its site says you can find shots “not only by the attributes you give them, but also their contents, like lines of text”, and index them for Spotlight. Its search covers the shots in its library. It’s $17.99 once on the Mac App Store, also €19.99 and £17.99, with a 28-day trial from its site, and it needs macOS 12.3 or later. See the ScreenFloat comparison.

CleanShot Cloud

CleanShot X is a capture and annotation tool. Its features page says CleanShot Cloud lets you “find captures by transcripts, screenshot content and tags”, which covers the captures you upload. Its text recognition, in more than 30 languages and on the device, copies text out of an area you select. CleanShot X costs $35 once with a year of updates and 1 GB of cloud storage, or $10 a month per user, billed annually, with unlimited storage. See the CleanShot X comparison.

DejaShot

DejaShot is ours. It reads the text in every screenshot in the folders you choose, newest first, and the first 200 are searchable in under a minute. It isn’t a capture tool, so it reads what the macOS shortcut, CleanShot X or anything else saves. For screenshots taken while it’s running, it notes which app and window were in front, so app:figma or “figma pricing” finds a screenshot even if the word Figma isn’t in it. Treat that as a strong hint, not a certainty. Older screenshots have their text but no app.

It searches 20,000 screenshots in 31 ms. At the 95th percentile, on an M2 Pro, measured in the search engine itself. It also has a timeline by day, Smart Collections such as Receipts and Code, renaming with Undo, and apps it leaves out. There’s no account, nothing is uploaded, and it needs macOS 14 or later. You pay once, and the price is on the pricing page.

Which way fits you?

You may end up using two or three of these. A rough guide:

• You remember a word, and you search now and then. Spotlight. It’s free and already there.
• You remember roughly when. The Finder, with kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 or a Smart Folder by date.
• The screenshot is in Photos. Search in Photos.
• You need one line from a screenshot you have. Preview’s Live Text, or a short shortcut.
• You live in Raycast. Its Search Screenshots command, free.
• You remember what it was about, not the words. ScreenVault’s search by meaning.
• You want capture, annotation and search in one app. ScreenFloat, or CleanShot X with Cloud if you’re happy to upload.
• You search screenshots every week, across several folders, or you remember the app. DejaShot, which notes the app for screenshots taken while it’s running.

Spotlight costs nothing to try first, and if it finds what you need, you don’t need anything else on this page.

Frequently asked questions

How do I see every screenshot on my Mac at once?

Guides that rank for this suggest typing kMDItemIsScreenCapture:1 into the Finder’s search field with This Mac selected. It lists files macOS marked as screenshots. Screenshots from other capture apps may not carry that mark, so a Smart Folder with Kind is Image and a date range catches the rest.

Can a Mac search the text in screenshots without an app?

Yes. Spotlight can search for text in images with Live Text, in the languages Live Text reads, once it has indexed the file. Photos can search the text in screenshots that are in your Photos library.

Which apps search screenshots without uploading them?

Raycast’s manual says its text recognition runs on the device. ScreenVault says screenshots, their text and its index stay on your Mac. DejaShot reads and searches on your Mac with no account. CleanShot Cloud’s search covers the captures you upload to its cloud.