Microsoft has disabled the OCR text detection in the Photos app, for now

The Photos app recently released the OCR text detection capability, which allows users to quickly copy and paste text from images. However, this capability has been removed from the app for now.

The removal was spotted by popular Insider @phantomofearth, after updating the Photos app in the Canary/Dev channels to the latest version.

Latest Photos app update in Canary/Dev (2024.11110.13009.0, not sure about other channels) disables (removes?) this feature, for some reason.

We don’t know why Microsoft removed it, but the Redmond-based tech giant has been teasing it for quite some time.

Many Windows users waited for the OCR feature in the Photos app, as it is one of the more popular capabilities in the otherwise pretty hated operating system (the numbers don’t lie). This means the tech giant most likely retired it for a while to fix some of its issues, so it’s definitely temporary.

Flavius Floare

Tech Journalist

Flavius is a writer and a media content producer with a particular interest in technology, gaming, media, film and storytelling.

He’s always curious and ready to take on everything new in the tech world, covering Microsoft’s products on a daily basis. The passion for gaming and hardware feeds his journalistic approach, making him a great researcher and news writer that’s always ready to bring you the bleeding edge!