TOTooSmugToFail·Mar 15, 2026
TRex is great, been using it for a while.
https://ameba.co/trex/
https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex/releases/tag/v2.0.0
In macOS app to copy text from screenshotamebalabs
TRex
Swift2021–2026
amebalabs / TRex
TRex
Copy any text on your screen, stop retyping.
7Distinct people
7Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
2KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Copy any text on your screen, stop retyping.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
To get this functionality everywhere, I’ve taken using the TRex app: https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex I have it mapped to ctrl-alt-command-C. As more and more apps and…
wanderingstan used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year7 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2021-05-22 06:49:36 UTC to 2026-03-15 08:54:29 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
7 sourcesShow HN: TRex – macOS OCR menu bar app, now with 100+ languages
Hi HN! I'm excited to share the latest major update to TRex, a free and open-source OCR tool for macOS.
TRex lives in your menu bar and extracts text from anywhere on your screen with a simple screenshot-like capture. Think of any PDF where you can't select text, images with text, or even YouTube videos – TRex grabs that text straight to your clipboard.
What's new in v1.9: Added Tesseract OCR engine alongside Apple Vision, giving you access to 100+ languages. TRex intelligently picks the best engine for your selected language. Apple Vision covers the common ones (English, Spanish, French, Chinese, etc.) while Tesseract fills in the gaps with everything from Afrikaans to Yoruba, including complex scripts like Arabic, Thai, and Cyrillic.
https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex
1 points · Open discussionJust three hours ago I switched back to Linux after a few years on MacOS. The only thing missing was the amazing text copy tool I was using, "Rex" [1]. What a coincidence to see this post on the front page a few hours later!
Side note, what a breath of fresh air Gnome on Fedora is!
[1] https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex
In TextSnatcher: Copy text from images, for the Linux DesktopSimilar tool, but open source - https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex
In macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workersTo get this functionality everywhere, I’ve taken using the TRex app: https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex
I have it mapped to ctrl-alt-command-C. As more and more apps and webpages make text unselectable, it’s become invaluable. My favorite trick is to copy the URL when someone is screen sharing their browser in a virtual meeting!
In Preview, the Mac app people forget aboutHere is a category of lesser known apps I use everyday: Text recognition. Want to copy text in an image? Or copy text on a website that won't allow you to copy? Both of the following apps use a similar keyboard shortcut to the screenshot shortcuts you already know, command + shift + 2. Now you can copy any text on your screen.
TextSniper - $6.99
https://textsniper.app
TRex - free
https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex
In Less known macOS apps you will legitimately want to use every dayVery nice! I'm currently using https://github.com/amebalabs/TRex for the same purpose.
In Show HN: I wrote a free Mac app to OCR any text on screen