Can Spotlight search for text inside images like PNG files?

Spotlight cannot index text in images. In your example, nowhere within the image is EFFICACIOUS stored as plain text.

After trying a few more experiments, I agree with the answer of @dialabrain: no, it cannot.

Yeah, that's why I suggested importing them into Photos and use that to find text in the images.

Searching for Live Text within image files works in Spotlight on macOS Tahoe 26 and the file does not need to be in Photos. It works for files outside of the Photos Library.

I have confirmed this works. If you have just recently upgraded to Tahoe it takes quite some time for Spotlight to index. Eventually in days it should start working. Depends on how much data you have. If you can't extract the Live Text in the Preview App then that image quality is not sharp nor clear enough for Live Text to capture the text accurately.

VikingOSX wrote:

Spotlight cannot index text in images. In your example, nowhere within the image is EFFICACIOUS stored as plain text.

+1

jewelslife wrote:

Is searching text in images outside of Spotlight's capability?

As you probably know you can with iOS based on your screenshot. Not with a Mac.

Photos.app software certainly has the capability to present such search results.

James Brickley wrote:

I saved the example PNG to my Desktop and eventually Spotlight indexed it.

+1 Turns out you were correct. I had to rebuild the Spotlight index, then it found it.

FWIW, I found many images with text in the picture that can be selected in Preview that Spotlight can not find. Even after re-indexing Spotlight.

I saved the example PNG to my Desktop and eventually Spotlight indexed it. Running a search now shows that Spotlight can indeed find text in images when searching for that text. Photos with text are also searchable within the Photos App.

For what it's worth, You cannot use Spotlight to search a folder of images for specific text.

James Brickley wrote:

Searching for Live Text within image files works in Spotlight on macOS Tahoe 26 and the file does not need to be in Photos. It works for files outside of the Photos Library.

Thanks— I see it now....

maybe there is more options in Settings>Spotlight (?)

dialabrain wrote:

FWIW, I did a search for a word in Photos and it did find the image with the word. But it also found 12 others that had nothing to do with the word. Other times it doesn't find anything. Hit & miss. Apparently it can also be fooled. I typed in the word "elephant" and it found 2 images that look nothing like an elephant.

I got a picture of a tree that sort of looked like a trunk (elephant not tree; I guess it looked like a tree trunk, too), a picture of my daughter next to an elephant statue, and a picture of a carnival ride with gray rock wall in the background that almost resembled elephant skin.

When I searched for Plasma, I got a screenshot of our PlasmCAM About screen, white board with a list of projects including "PVC pipe frame for Plasma cutter," and a handwritten note with information about our PlasmaCAM license info.

I think Photos will scan for text in images, but not sure. Try adding one of the images to your Photos library and test. I also don’t know how long it will take to process the image for the text to be searchable (if it can at all).

FWIW, I did a search for a word in Photos and it did find the image with the word. But it also found 12 others that had nothing to do with the word. Other times it doesn't find anything. Hit & miss. Apparently it can also be fooled. I typed in the word "elephant" and it found 2 images that look nothing like an elephant.