Legible OCR

1. Layout keptThe shape of the page survives.

   Legible runs Unlimited-OCR, an open vision model, on your Mac's GPU through MLX. It tells a heading from a paragraph, writes tables as tables and equations as LaTeX, and marks where each figure sits. Latin-script and CJK text alike. What you get is Markdown you can use, not a wall of lines.

2. Figures cut outEvery image on the page, its own file.

   Each figure is cropped at exactly the box the model found and shown in place in the rendered text. Drag one to Finder, Mail or Notes, or export the whole document as Markdown with Figures, a folder or a ZIP with the images beside the text.

3. Three exportsMarkdown, plain text, searchable PDF.

   Copy a page or save the document as Markdown or plain text. Or write your original PDF or scan back out with an invisible text layer under every page, so Preview finds words in it, Spotlight indexes it, and any PDF reader can select and copy what Legible read.

4. Find and searchEvery page you have read, on hand.

   ⌘F finds a word in the open document and steps through the hits, highlighted in the text and ringed on the page image. Search Library asks a full-text index of every page you have ever read, across every document, as you type.

5. AgentsClaude Code and Codex read your library.

   Settings › Agents starts a local MCP server that lets a coding agent list your documents, read their text, fetch their figures, add a file and run it, and search the library. It listens on your Mac only, guarded by a token, and is off until you turn it on. One command connects an agent:

   # Claude Code; the pane copies the same line for Codex
   claude mcp add --transport http legible http://127.0.0.1:7423/mcp

6. Your choice of weightsSpeed or fidelity, in four sizes.

   The model comes in 4-bit, 6-bit, 8-bit and bf16 packs, 2.46 to 6.68 GB. Pick one in Settings › Models; each downloads, verifies and removes on its own, and switching takes effect on the page being read. Legible can also keep serving agents from the menu bar with its window closed, and start at login, if you ask it to.

1. 1 Nothing leaves your MacThe model runs on your GPU. There is no account, no server, no analytics, and no crash reporting of ours. The app's one connection is the download of the model's weights, once, from Hugging Face.
2. 2 It reads only what you openLegible is sandboxed by the Mac App Store. It sees the files you open or drop on it and writes only where you save. Your documents stay where they are; the library keeps the text it read.
3. 3 No subscriptionThe free version is a whole app that reads five pages of any document. One purchase reads every page, for good, on every Mac signed in with your Apple Account.
4. 4 Open weights, checkedThe model is the Unlimited-OCR pack mlx-community publishes, pinned to a commit. Every file is hashed before it is loaded; nothing downloaded is ever executed.
5. 5 Agents by invitationThe agents server is off by default, listens on 127.0.0.1 only, asks for a token, and closes the moment you turn it off. What an agent does with the text it reads is the agent's business, and yours.

How is this different from Live Text, or an OCR service in the cloud?

Live Text and most OCR give you lines of words. Legible reads the page's layout: headings, paragraphs, tables, equations and figures, as Markdown. A cloud service does that by uploading your pages; Legible does it on your Mac and uploads nothing.

Is it free?

The download is free and reads five pages of any document, every document, with re-reads free. The 7-day Trial lifts that for a week; the one-time Full Version lifts it for good.

What Mac do I need?

Any Mac with Apple silicon on macOS 26, about 4 GB of disk for the default model, and 16 GB of memory to be comfortable. On an 8 GB Mac the model may swap; the 4-bit pack is lighter.

Why does it download something on first launch?

The model's weights, 3.93 GB for the default 8-bit pack, come from Hugging Face once, from the setup panel in the window. The download pauses and resumes, and you can choose a smaller pack first.

What happens to my documents?

They stay in place. Legible keeps the text it reads, the figure crops and a search index in its own library on your Mac, and sends none of it anywhere. A file an agent adds is copied into that library.

Which languages does it read?

Latin-script text and Chinese, Japanese and Korean, with equations written as LaTeX and tables as Markdown. The app itself is in English.

What can an agent see?

Only when Agents is on: the list of your documents, their text, their figures and the search index, over a local port with a token. It can also add a document and ask Legible to read it, under the same five-page allowance you have.

Can I get a refund?

Purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too: at reportaproblem.apple.com, under Apple's terms.

More on the model download, exports and agents on the support page. How your data is handled, in full, in the privacy policy.