The text is in the picture. Get it out.
A screenshot with a paragraph you need, a scanned contract, a photo of a whiteboard. Right-click it and the text is on your clipboard — or in a .txt beside each file when you select several. Apple's own recognition does the reading, on your Mac.
Free account, no card · 294 MB · Apple silicon & Intel
Ricly▸Extracting text2 documents · on this MacText extractedInvoice-0826.txt, Receipt_03.txt · beside the originalsYou have done this a hundred times.
- Open a browser
- Find an OCR site
- Upload the scan
- Wait
- Copy the text
- Fix the line breaks
- Close the tab
Ricly puts that one in the menu that is already under your cursor. Right-click the scan, pick Extract Text, and the text opens in a panel, already copied — or lands in a .txt beside each file when you select several. Apple Vision does the reading, on your Mac, in French and English.
See what else comes with it
What you get, exactly.
One text file per document, written beside the original. On a PDF that already carries real text, that text is taken directly — instant, and exact. Only the pages that are pictures go through recognition.
Apple Vision does the reading
The same recognition the system uses when you select text inside a photo. It is on your Mac, it costs nothing per page, and no document is sent to a service that will keep a copy of your contract.
A PDF is handled twice as well
If the page already has a text layer, it is read straight out — no recognition, no error, no time. Only scanned or image-only pages fall back to Vision. A mixed document gets the best of both, page by page.
A plain text file, beside the original
Same folder, same name, .txt. Nothing proprietary to open it with, nothing to export again. Your source document is not modified, moved or deleted.
It tells you when there is nothing
A picture with no readable text does not produce an empty file that looks like a failure. You are told that nothing was found, which is a different thing from a crash.
Same job. No round trip.
OCR sites are where invoices, IDs and contracts get uploaded by people who only wanted the text out of them. Counted the same way, once your account exists, here is what that costs.
With Riclyon your Mac
WHAT IT REPLACES
Now do it 20 timesOne .txt
beside each scan
A folder of scans is one right-click. The menu reads Extract Text (20 files), and each document gets a plain .txt beside it, same name. A PDF that already carries a text layer is read straight out; only scanned pages go through recognition.
There is a native path, and it is Live Text. Open the picture, wait a beat, drag across the words, copy. It works on one picture at a time, and a multi-page scan is a page at a time. Ricly runs the same Vision engine over a whole selection, PDFs included, and writes the result where you can find it.
The words were always there.
A receipt, a whiteboard, a contract someone scanned. Ricly reads them on your Mac and hands you text you can search.
You came for one tool. 16 more come with it.
Extract Text (OCR) is not an app you install. It is one item in a menu that also carries 16 others — same download, same account, nothing extra to set up.
13 are free, 4 are Pro. They install themselves as they ship, so the menu grows without you doing anything. Compress PDF makes the scan lighter once you have its text, and Merge to PDF puts twenty receipts into one file.
This one needs Pro. Then it has no ceiling.
The menu still shows Extract Text, marked ⚡: click it and you get the Pro page, not the tool. 13 other tools are free for good.
- 13 tools work fully on Free, with no card.
- You can install Ricly and use it for months without paying.
- A free account is required, an email address is enough.
€47.88 billed yearly, or €4.99 month to month. No monthly count on this tool — read a whole folder of scans if you want to.
- Extract Text unlocks, with no monthly count.
- So do the other three Pro tools: Upscale Image, Photo Grid and Batch Rename.
- Upload & Share goes to 20 GB and links last 30 days.
- 30-day trial for new subscribers · payment method required · cancel any time.
Questions people actually ask.
What does the reading?
Apple Vision, the same recognition macOS uses when you select text inside a photo, set to its accurate mode with language correction, in French and English. It runs on your Mac and costs nothing per page.
What happens with one file?
The text opens in a panel and is already on your clipboard; from there you can save it as .txt or .md. Select several files and each gets a .txt beside it instead.
What about a PDF?
If a page already carries real text, that text is taken directly — instant and exact, with a marker between pages. Only scanned or image-only pages go through recognition.
Is the document uploaded anywhere?
No. Nothing is sent to a server, which is the point for an invoice, an ID or a contract.
Which files can I use?
JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF and PDF. A picture with no readable text tells you so rather than producing an empty file.
Where does the text file go?
Beside the original, same name, .txt. If that name is taken you get “Invoice 2.txt” rather than an overwritten file, and your source document is never modified.
Right Click. Done.
17 file tools in the Finder menu. Free to start.
Free account, no card · macOS 13 or later
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