Ghost Text
Text Recognition, Reinvented
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Congrats on the launch. Ghost Text looks like a super handy free macOS OCR app. Just checked it out on Product Hunt. Wishing you lots of votes and success.
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How about windows?
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I run into that all the time with screenshots or scanned docs. Just gave it a try and it works smoothly - feels like one of those tools you don’t realize you need until you use it.
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Exactly! That was the goal to make it super seamless for those everyday moments where you don’t even think you’ll need it, but it saves you time instantly. Glad it worked smoothly for you
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Yeah, that makes sense, I didn't realize how much time I was wasting until I tried it. It's those little tasks that sneak up and pile on, so having something that just works without thinking about it really does make a difference
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Is not macOS supporting it natively? Was sure that latest versions do it by drfault
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macOS does have Live Text for images, but it’s limited to certain apps and formats. This tool works anywhere screenshots, PDFs, apps with locked text so you’re not restricted to where Apple supports it
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Is the OCR fully on-device (Apple Vision vs Tesseract), and how do you handle privacy for screenshots? Also, any plans for a global shortcut and batch/continuous capture from video frames?
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Global shortcut support is on the way (I’ve been experimenting with making it system-wide, rather than just the menu trigger). Batch/continuous capture from video frames is also on the roadmap, which I see as being extremely useful for people dealing with lectures, tutorials, or meetings.
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Nice - system-wide shortcut would be clutch. For video, a continuous capture mode with a 0.5–2s interval and "append to clipboard/document" would save tons of copy steps.
Btw, I got an offer for you that will benefit both of us. I am developing a social network for entrepreneurs and will be launching a closed beta in 19 days, and if you would register in the waitlist, and just tell people the story of your project in a post format, we could boost it so more people will know about Ghost Text!
You get: more users
We get: an entrepreneur on board
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Looks cool! I’ve seen tools that let you copy text from PDFs ...... keen to know how Ghost Text is different. Does it also handle things like grabbing text from YouTube videos or screenshots on the fly?
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Yes it does
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Voted
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thanks buddy
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Congrats on the launch. OCR tools always sound niche until you realize how often you need them, and having it baked right into macOS with a clean UX is super handy. Just tried it on a screenshot and it worked perfectly.
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“That’s a clean little utility. Did you build it just for yourself first, or did you always plan to share it?”
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Congrats on shipping Ghost Text!
A few concrete ideas that might help with adoption and learning:
1) Above-the-fold clarity
Spell out the exact pain + constraint: “Works in any app? Plain text only? Keeps formatting? System-wide shortcut?”
A 15–20s GIF of the before/after would answer 80% of questions.
2) First-run & onboarding
On macOS a lot of friction is from permissions. Consider a tiny checklist on first launch:
• grant Accessibility / pasteboard permissions
• set a global shortcut
• try a 10-sec “hello world” task
3) Keyboard-first details
Menu bar + global shortcut + “Paste without formatting” toggle are killer for power users.
If you support templates/snippets, show 1 example (e.g., date stamps, removing UTM).
4) Trust & privacy
One line about local-only processing (if true) and what’s collected. Add a “Send feedback” item in the menu.
5) Instrumentation
Track: first_launch, permission_granted, shortcut_set, first_successful_action, daily_active, crash.
It’ll show you exactly where new users drop.
6) Distribution ideas
Post a short GIF + one-liner to r/MacApps, r/mac, r/Productivity, and “Show HN”.
Also list on AlternativeTo & MacUpdate; consider Setapp later if you add a Pro tier.
7) Monetization (if ever)
Keep a generous free tier; add Pro for advanced templates, iCloud sync, multi-snippets, regex/transform rules.
If you share the core use case you’re optimizing for, happy to suggest a tighter headline.
Nice work shipping a tidy Mac utility!
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Congratulations on your launch!
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Hey, this sounds super relatable! That frustration of not being able to copy code from a tutorial is real. It's awesome that you turned that annoyance into building Ghost Text. I bet many developers will find this tool incredibly useful for those tricky situations. Great idea!
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Congratulations on the launch!
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thanks buddy
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Congrats with the launch 🎉 Are you planning to monetize it?
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