To search text in photos on iPhone, open the Photos app, tap the magnifying glass in the bottom-right corner, and type a word that appears in the image: a name, a street, an email address, part of a booking code. Photos uses Live Text to read the words inside your photos and screenshots, so matching images show up in the results. You can run the same search from Spotlight by swiping down on the Home Screen. Live Text needs an iPhone XS, XR or later, and it has to be switched on.
That covers the happy path. The rest of this guide covers searching just your screenshots, copying text out of a photo, what this kind of search can't do, and what to check when it returns nothing.
How to search text in photos on iPhone
Here are the steps in iOS 27, straight from Apple's search guide:
- Open the Photos app.
- Tap the magnifying glass in the bottom-right corner.
- Type a word you remember from the image.
- Tap a suggestion, or tap Search to see everything that matches.
- Swipe up to browse the full results.
Text is only one of the things Photos can match. Apple lists dates, places, business names, categories like "beach", events, named people and pets, captions and, as of iOS 27, keywords you've added yourself. You can mix them, too. "Lisbon receipt" narrows things far more than either word alone.
Two tools on the results screen are easy to miss. You can sort results by the date a photo was captured or the date it was added. And you can filter them, for example to Favorites only. When you're hunting for something from "around March", sorting by date beats scrolling.
Search words in photos from Spotlight
You don't have to open Photos at all. Spotlight, the iPhone's system-wide search, also looks through text in your photos:
- Swipe down on the Home Screen or Lock Screen (or tap Search at the bottom of the Home Screen).
- Type the word you're looking for.
- Scroll to the photo results and tap one to open it in Photos.
Apple's Spotlight guide mentions this directly: you can find "text in your photos using Live Text". Spotlight is handy when you're not sure whether the thing you remember is in a photo, a message or an email, since it searches all of them at once.
If photos never appear in Spotlight, check Settings → Search, tap Photos, and make sure it's allowed to show in search.
How to search screenshots on iPhone
Screenshots are usually what people are actually looking for. A photo of a sunset rarely has text in it. A screenshot of a confirmation email is almost all text.
To search only your screenshots:
- In Photos, tap Collections.
- Scroll down to Media Types and tap Screenshots.
- Tap the magnifying glass and search from there.
Apple lets you search inside a specific album or collection, so results stay limited to screenshots. That cuts out the noise when you're searching for something like "gate", which might otherwise match a hundred holiday photos of actual gates.
If you'd like your screenshots in better shape before the next search, I wrote a separate guide on how to organize screenshots on iPhone, including hiding them from your main library and tagging the important ones with keywords.
Copy, translate or act on text in a single photo
Sometimes you've found the screenshot and just need the text out of it: the wifi password, the address, the phone number. That's Live Text inside one photo:
- Open the photo or screenshot.
- Tap the Live Text button that appears in the corner of the image when text is detected.
- Touch and hold the text, adjust the selection, then choose Copy, Translate, Look Up or Share.
Depending on the text, quick actions also appear at the bottom of the screen: call a phone number, open a website, convert a currency or get directions.
What iPhone photo search is good at, and where it falls short
Text search in Photos is genuinely good when you remember a distinctive string. A booking reference like X4K9. An email address. A restaurant's name. The surname on a parcel label. Unusual words make it fast and precise.
It struggles in three situations:
- You don't remember the words. Search matches the text that's in the image. If the host's message says "Network: Aurora-2F" and you search "wifi password", there's nothing in that screenshot for it to match.
- The text is hard to read. Small, blurry, stylized or handwritten text may not be recognized reliably. Photos does have a Handwriting collection under Utilities, but printed text is far easier to search.
- You remember the moment, not the content. "That pasta thing Sam sent before the trip" is how memory actually works, and it isn't something a text index can answer.
Apple Intelligence helps with some of this. On an iPhone 15 Pro or later, you can describe a photo in natural language and Photos will look for images that match the description. That's very good for photos of scenes and people. Screenshots are mostly text, though, so their meaning lives in the words. I wrote a separate post on searching by meaning instead of keywords if you want the longer version.
Search text in photos on iPhone not working? Check these
When a search you're sure should work comes back empty, go through this list in order.
1. Make sure your iPhone supports Live Text
Live Text needs an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or a later model. On older iPhones, Photos can still search dates, places and people, but not the words inside images. Apple's Live Text support page lists the requirements.
2. Turn Live Text on
Go to Settings → General → Language & Region and make sure Live Text is on. It's usually on by default, but it's the first thing to check.
3. Check the language
Live Text reads a few dozen languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, but not every language and script. If the text in your screenshot is in a language that isn't supported, it won't be searchable. Apple keeps the current list on its feature availability page.
4. Give it time after a big change
Photos reads and indexes your library in the background, and that work tends to wait for quiet time, like when your iPhone is locked and charging overnight. After you set up a new iPhone, restore from a backup or import thousands of images, older photos may not be searchable straight away. Leaving it on the charger for a few nights gives it the time it needs.
5. Try a different word
Pick the most unusual word you remember, not the most obvious one. "Saudade" will find a screenshot of Rua da Saudade faster than "street" will. If the screenshot has a number, try that. Check your spelling, since search won't guess what you meant.
6. Update iOS
Search and recognition improve with iOS updates. If you're a few versions behind, update through Settings → General → Software Update and try again once the library has had time to re-index.
Where Reminari fits
Photos is a photo library that happens to read text. If you mostly need the words inside screenshots, that's usually enough. Where it gets frustrating is the moment you remember what something meant but not what it said.
Reminari is built for that moment. It reads the text inside your screenshots on your device, writes a short title and summary for each, and lets you search by meaning. "Wifi password" finds the screenshot that only says "Network: Aurora-2F". You can also just ask a question and get an answer pulled from your own saves, with the source shown.
Reminari is Android first right now, and the iPhone app is in active development. If you'd like it on iPhone, join the early-access list. On Android today? Here's how to search text inside screenshots on Android.
Frequently asked questions
Can iPhone search for text in photos?
Yes. On an iPhone XS, XR or later with Live Text turned on, the Photos app and Spotlight can find photos and screenshots by the words inside them. Open Photos, tap the magnifying glass and type a word from the image.
Why can't I search text in my photos on iPhone?
The usual causes are an unsupported iPhone model, Live Text being switched off, text in an unsupported language, or a library that hasn't finished indexing after a new phone or a big import. Check Settings → General → Language & Region first, then give your iPhone a few nights on the charger to catch up.
Does iPhone search text in screenshots?
Yes. Screenshots are part of your photo library, so their text is searchable like any other image. To search only screenshots, open Collections, go to Media Types, tap Screenshots and search from there.
How do I copy text from a photo on iPhone?
Open the photo, tap the Live Text button in the corner, then touch and hold the text and drag the grab points to select it. Tap Copy and paste it wherever you need it. The same menu also offers Translate and Look Up.
Can I search photos on iPhone by what they mean, not the exact words?
Partly. On iPhones with Apple Intelligence you can describe a photo in natural language, which works well for scenes and people. For screenshots that are mostly text, search still leans on the words actually in the image, which is why apps built around search by meaning exist.
