Feature · Text in images
Search the text inside your screenshots, photos and PDFs
Updated
Homedex runs text recognition (OCR) on your images and scanned PDFs in the background using the text recognition engine built into Windows. Once indexed, typing a word like “password” or a tracking number finds every image that contains it, with the match highlighted. Nothing is uploaded.
Why file search misses your screenshots
A screenshot is a picture of text, not text. File Explorer, Windows Search and most file managers only see its name, something like “Screenshot 2026-08-14 214501.png”. The Wi-Fi password, the order number or the quote inside it is invisible to them.
Homedex fixes that by reading each image once, storing the words in a small index on your own disk, and searching that index alongside file names.
How to find an image by the words in it
- 1Install and open Homedex
On first launch it indexes your Pictures, Desktop, Documents and Downloads. Text recognition continues quietly in the background.
- 2Type what the image says
Search for a word or phrase you remember from the image, for example “wifi password” or “invoice 4471”.
- 3Preview and copy
Press Space to preview the match with the text highlighted. Select just the words you need, or press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy all the text from one image or many.
What it reads
- Screenshots of chats, settings, receipts and web pages
- Photos of receipts, whiteboards, menus and signs
- Scanned PDFs that have no text layer
- PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP, TIFF and GIF images, plus HEIC, AVIF and camera RAW files when Windows has the codec installed
Private by design
Recognition runs on your computer with the text recognition engine built into Windows. Homedex has no cloud: the recognised text lives only in the local index, which you can delete from Settings at any time.
Questions
- Does Homedex upload my images for OCR?
- No. Text recognition runs entirely on your computer using the text recognition engine built into Windows. Your images and the text found in them never leave your device.
- Can I copy text from many screenshots at once?
- Yes. Select any number of images and press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy all their recognised text, one block per file.
- Does it work on scanned PDFs?
- Yes. PDFs without a text layer are recognised like images, so scanned documents become searchable too.
Every file you own, easy to find.
Homedex is a visual file browser for Windows. Big previews, plain-English search, text inside screenshots, duplicate cleanup — all on your device.
Related
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- Find files by describing them in plain EnglishSearch your computer like you'd ask a friend: “videos from my iphone in august” or “zips bigger than 1gb older than 6 months”. Homedex understands kind, date, size and source.
- Homedex vs Everything (voidtools)Everything is the fastest free file-name search on Windows. Homedex is for when you don't know the name: text in images, download sources, duplicates, previews.