Copy text that will not let you select it
Some apps and pages deliberately disable selection. A screenshot is not blocked, and a screenshot is just an image — which is a problem with a well-known solution.
Show everything the scan found
This tool runs in the browser. The app does the same from your camera, keeps a history, and works offline.
Why selection gets blocked
There are three common mechanisms and they all fail against the same trick. A web page can disable selection with a single CSS rule, user-select: none, or swallow the copy event in JavaScript. A mobile app can render text into a canvas or an image, so there is no text object to select in the first place. And a messaging app can set a server-side flag that turns off forwarding, copying and saving for an entire channel.
None of them stops the screen being captured, and none changes what the pixels look like. So the reliable route is: capture the screen, then read the text back out of the capture.
The honest caveats
Two things worth saying plainly. First, some apps block screenshots themselves — banking apps and a few streaming services blank the frame. If your screenshot comes out black, that is what happened, and no reader helps. Second, content being technically copyable does not make it yours. Restrictions are often there for a reason, and this page is about getting a phone number or an address out of a channel you legitimately belong to, not about lifting someone's work.
Practical notes
- Capture at native resolution rather than photographing the screen with a second phone.
- Dark-mode text on a dark background reads worse than light mode. Switch themes before capturing if you can.
- If you only need a number out of the capture, the numbers-only tool is more accurate than general text recognition.
- Longer walkthrough: copying text that cannot be copied.
Questions
Is this legal?
Reading text off your own screen is ordinary use. What you then do with the content is governed by copyright and the service's terms — this tool does not change that.
My screenshot came out black.
Some apps block screen capture at the OS level, usually banking and streaming apps. Nothing recovers text from a blanked frame.
Does it work on restricted Telegram channels?
If you can see the message you can screenshot it on most platforms, and the screenshot reads normally here.
Guides for this
The tool reads the number. These cover where it lives, why a read fails, and what to do with the result.
How to Copy Text From Telegram When It Is Blocked
How to copy text from Telegram when a channel has Restrict Saving Content switched on: what the setting blocks, what it cannot reach, and the screenshot route.
How to Copy Text That Cannot Be Copied
How to copy text that cannot be copied: browser fixes for user-select none, what to do in locked apps and PDFs, and when a screenshot plus OCR is faster.
Do this with a camera instead
Your phone will offer its camera right here — the file picker above includes Take Photo. What the app adds is selecting a region on the photo it just took, a paid history of every scan, working with no connection, and no 7 MB engine download. Check-digit verification, on the IMEI, VIN and IBAN tools, is a web feature and is not in the app.