What is Visual Intelligence on Mac and iPhone?

Visual Intelligence is an Apple Intelligence feature that analyzes the visual content of images and screenshots. It can identify objects, plants, animals, landmarks, products, and text. On iPhone, you can trigger it with the Camera Control button. On Mac, you use it through the Photos app, Quick Look, or by right-clicking an image and selecting the Visual Intelligence options.

Which Mac and iPhone models support Visual Intelligence?

Visual Intelligence requires Apple Intelligence, which is available on iPhone 16 and later, iPad with M1 or later, and Mac with M1 or later. The feature also requires macOS Tahoe (macOS 26) or iOS 26. Older devices and operating systems do not support Visual Intelligence, though they may have basic Visual Look Up for identifying objects in photos.

Can Visual Intelligence read and extract text from screenshots?

Yes. Visual Intelligence uses on-device OCR (optical character recognition) to detect and extract text from screenshots. You can select, copy, translate, or search any text that appears in a screenshot. This works for printed text, handwritten text, code, and even text in different languages. It builds on Live Text but adds AI-powered understanding of the text's context and meaning.

Is Visual Intelligence processing done on-device or in the cloud?

Most Visual Intelligence processing happens on-device using the Apple Neural Engine. Basic identification of objects, text extraction, and simple lookups are entirely local and private. For more complex queries — like asking detailed questions about a screenshot's content or using the ChatGPT integration — processing may use Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers or OpenAI's servers, with your explicit permission.

How to Use Visual Intelligence to Search and Identify Screenshots on Mac and iPhone (2026)

What Visual Intelligence does with your screenshots

Visual Intelligence is Apple’s AI-powered image analysis feature that understands what’s in a screenshot and lets you act on it. Point it at a screenshot and it can identify products, read and extract text, recognize landmarks, look up plants and animals, summarize content, and answer questions about what it sees.

It goes beyond the older Visual Look Up feature (which could identify dog breeds and landmarks in photos). Visual Intelligence processes screenshots as rich, structured information — not just images with recognizable objects. It understands UI layouts, code snippets, error messages, form fields, and any text-heavy content that developers and professionals screenshot daily.

Requirements

Requirement	Details
Mac	Apple Silicon (M1 or later) running macOS Tahoe (macOS 26)
iPhone	iPhone 16 or later running iOS 26
iPad	M1 chip or later running iPadOS 26
Apple Intelligence	Must be enabled in System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri
Language	Device language set to a supported language (English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish)

Using Visual Intelligence with screenshots on Mac

Method 1: Quick Look

The fastest way to analyze a screenshot on Mac:

Select a screenshot file in Finder
Press Space to open Quick Look
Click the Visual Intelligence button (the sparkle icon) in the Quick Look toolbar
Visual Intelligence analyzes the image and shows interactive results — identified objects, extracted text, suggested actions

Method 2: Right-click in Finder

Right-click any screenshot file in Finder
Hover over Quick Actions in the context menu
Click Look Up or Ask About This Image
Visual Intelligence opens with analysis results and suggested actions

Method 3: Photos app

If your screenshots sync to Photos (via iCloud or import):

Open the screenshot in Photos
Click the Info button (the “i” icon)
Visual Intelligence results appear automatically — identified objects, text, and context-aware suggestions
Click any identified item for more details or actions

LazyScreenshots helps you annotate and beautify screenshots before sharing — add context that Visual Intelligence can’t.

Try LazyScreenshots Free

Using Visual Intelligence with screenshots on iPhone

Camera Control button

On iPhone 16 and later, press and hold the Camera Control button to activate Visual Intelligence on whatever is on your screen. While this is primarily designed for the camera viewfinder, it also works when you’re viewing a screenshot in the Photos app or any image viewer.

From the Photos app

Open a screenshot in Photos
Tap the Info button
Visual Intelligence results appear below the image — tap any identified item to see details, search the web, or take an action

From the screenshot preview

After taking a screenshot on iPhone, tap the floating thumbnail in the bottom-left corner. In the Markup editor, tap the Visual Intelligence button to analyze the screenshot before saving or sharing it.

What Visual Intelligence can identify in screenshots

Content type	What Visual Intelligence does	Example use case
Products	Identifies the product and finds where to buy it	Screenshot a product from a website, Visual Intelligence finds it on Amazon or the manufacturer’s site
Text (any language)	Extracts, copies, translates, and searches text	Screenshot an error message, Visual Intelligence extracts it for pasting into a search or issue tracker
Plants and animals	Identifies species with detailed information	Screenshot a plant from a gardening app, Visual Intelligence names the species and care instructions
Landmarks and places	Identifies the location with directions and details	Screenshot a photo from a travel site, Visual Intelligence identifies the landmark and opens Maps
Food and recipes	Identifies dishes, suggests recipes	Screenshot a meal from social media, Visual Intelligence suggests similar recipes
Code and technical content	Extracts and explains code, error messages, and logs	Screenshot a stack trace, Visual Intelligence extracts the text and explains the error
UI elements	Understands interface layouts, identifies components	Screenshot a settings panel, Visual Intelligence explains each option

Practical workflows for developers and professionals

Screenshot an error, get an explanation

When you encounter an error dialog, crash log, or terminal output that you don’t immediately understand:

Take a screenshot of the error
Open it with Visual Intelligence
The AI extracts the error text and provides context — what the error means, common causes, and suggested fixes
For deeper analysis, tap Ask ChatGPT to get a detailed explanation and solution

This is faster than manually copying error text, especially for errors in dialog boxes, notification banners, or images where text selection isn’t available.

Identify a UI component from a screenshot

See a UI pattern in another app that you want to recreate? Screenshot it, then use Visual Intelligence to analyze the design. It can identify common components (navigation bars, tab views, card layouts, modals) and provide context about the design pattern being used.

Extract structured data from screenshots

Screenshots of tables, spreadsheets, invoices, or receipts contain structured data trapped in an image. Visual Intelligence extracts this data and lets you:

Copy all text at once
Copy individual values or rows
Create a calendar event from a date in the screenshot
Add a phone number or email to Contacts
Open a URL that appears in the screenshot

Translate foreign-language screenshots

If you screenshot content in a language you don’t read — a Japanese error message, a German settings panel, a Spanish notification — Visual Intelligence detects the language and offers instant translation. This builds on Live Text translation but adds contextual understanding of what the text means within the screenshot’s interface.

Visual Intelligence vs. Live Text vs. Visual Look Up

Apple now has three overlapping image analysis features. Here’s how they differ:

Feature	What it does	Available since	Requires Apple Intelligence
Live Text	Detects and lets you select/copy text in images	macOS Monterey / iOS 15	No
Visual Look Up	Identifies objects (plants, animals, landmarks) in photos	macOS Monterey / iOS 15	No
Visual Intelligence	Comprehensive image understanding with actions, questions, and AI-powered analysis	macOS Tahoe / iOS 26	Yes

Visual Intelligence is the superset. It includes everything Live Text and Visual Look Up can do, plus the ability to ask questions about the image, get contextual suggestions, and take actions based on what it finds. If you have an Apple Intelligence-capable device on macOS Tahoe or iOS 26, Visual Intelligence is the tool to use.

The ChatGPT integration for deeper analysis

When Visual Intelligence’s on-device analysis isn’t enough, you can escalate to ChatGPT directly from the Visual Intelligence panel. Tap Ask ChatGPT and type a question about the screenshot. For example:

“What does this error mean and how do I fix it?”
“Recreate this UI layout in SwiftUI”
“Summarize this document screenshot”
“What font is used in this design?”

The ChatGPT integration sends the screenshot and your question to OpenAI’s servers. A confirmation prompt appears the first time, and you can enable or disable this integration in System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > ChatGPT.

Privacy and on-device processing

Visual Intelligence is designed with privacy in mind:

On-device by default — object identification, text extraction, and basic Look Up all run locally on the Apple Neural Engine
Private Cloud Compute — more complex AI queries use Apple’s servers, which process your request without storing your data or making it accessible to Apple
ChatGPT is opt-in — sending screenshots to ChatGPT requires explicit permission each time (or a one-time opt-in). Your data is subject to OpenAI’s privacy policy for these requests
No training on your data — Apple states that neither Apple nor OpenAI uses your Visual Intelligence interactions to train AI models

If you’re screenshotting sensitive content (API keys, credentials, internal dashboards), be aware that using the ChatGPT integration sends that image to external servers. The on-device features and Private Cloud Compute are the safer options for confidential screenshots.

Tips for getting better results from Visual Intelligence

Crop before analyzing — a focused screenshot of just the relevant content produces more accurate and specific results than a full-screen capture
Use area capture (Cmd+Shift+4) to screenshot just the element you want analyzed — an error dialog, a product image, a code block
Higher resolution helps — Visual Intelligence reads text more accurately from Retina-resolution screenshots. Avoid screenshotting already-compressed or low-resolution images
Ask specific questions when using the ChatGPT integration — “What CSS property creates this gradient effect?” gets a better answer than “What is this?”
Combine with LazyScreenshots — annotate your screenshot first to highlight the specific area you want analyzed, then use Visual Intelligence on the annotated version