How to find a screenshot by the text inside it
Type the words you remember seeing. CloudShots reads the text in every screenshot on your device and searches it together with the scene tags and the filename it writes for you, so a phrase from the picture is enough to bring the screenshot back.
What CloudShots searches
- The text recognized in the screenshot, including text inside a photo of a screen or a document.
- Scene tags describing what is in the picture.
- The descriptive filename CloudShots generates on devices that support Apple Intelligence.
All three are produced on the device and stay there. The index is not uploaded and not synced — each of your devices builds its own.
How to search
- Open CloudShots on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad and type into the search field.
- Use as many words as you remember, in any order. Every word has to appear somewhere, so “invoice march” finds a screenshot reading “March invoice total”.
- Narrow it by time with a phrase like “yesterday”, “last week”, or “last 30 days” next to your words.
- On Mac, iPhone, and iPad, ask Siri in a full sentence — CloudShots turns it into the same search, on the device.
- Or start from Spotlight. CloudShots gives it the capture date, the recognized text, and the tags, and opening a result opens that exact screenshot.
What else the recognized text gives you
- Verification codes, passwords, IBANs, links, email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses are picked out for you to copy or open. A one-time code or password is copied only on that device and expires shortly after.
- Live Text over the open screenshot, so you can select and copy anything by hand.
- A short summary of the open screenshot, produced on the device and free on either plan, on devices that support Apple Intelligence.
- Find Similar, which ranks visually close screenshots instead of matching words.
The limits
- Search, recognition, generated names, and summaries are free on both plans. There is no account.
- On Free you can search across all your screenshots, but only the newest 30 in your whole history stay open.
- Text you have covered with a redaction is left out of what Spotlight receives.
- Search runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Apple Watch shows the history read-only.
Finding a screenshot again.
No. Text recognition, scene tags, generated names, and summaries run on your device, and the search index stays on that device — it is never uploaded or synced.
No. Every word you type has to appear somewhere in the recognized text, the tags, or the generated filename, in any order — "invoice march" finds a screenshot reading "March invoice total".
Yes. Add a phrase such as "yesterday", "last week", "last month", or "last 30 days" to your words and CloudShots narrows the search to that window.
Yes, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. CloudShots gives Spotlight the capture date, the recognized text, and the tags, and opening a result opens that exact screenshot in the app. Text you have covered with a redaction is left out.
Yes. Search and on-device recognition cost nothing. On Free you can search across all your screenshots, but only the newest 30 in your whole history stay open.
More guides
- How to Automatically Sync Screenshots Between iPhone and MacSet up one private screenshot history that syncs through iCloud.
- How to free up the space your screenshots takeClear synced originals from Photos and your Mac without losing your history.
- How to sync iPhone screenshots to your Mac — and Mac screenshots to your iPhoneBoth directions, automatic, through your own iCloud — no AirDrop, no export.
- A screenshot manager for Mac, iPhone and iPadOne searchable, synced history instead of a pile in Photos and on the Desktop.
- The iCloud screenshot manager for Mac, iPhone and iPadWhat lives in your own iCloud, how the library limit works, and what stays private.
- All guides
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