Microsoft has introduced a new feature in its Phone Link application that allows users to select and copy text from images synced from their Android phones. The new feature is currently available in the Release Preview Insider builds and will soon be accessible to all users.
Phone Link, called “Link to Windows” on Android, allows the synchronization of calls, messages, notifications, and photos from Android phones to Windows PCs. The app provides restricted features for iOS devices as well, enabling the syncing of notifications, messages, and calls through Bluetooth. Additionally, the newly introduced text extraction feature is designed to simplify the copying of text from images, which previously required the use of the Windows Snipping Tool.
Optical Character Recognition for Photos
The new functionality in Phone Link is accessible via a “text” icon when viewing photos in the app. Users can initiate character recognition by tapping the icon, which allows them to select specific text, highlight all text, or copy all text from the image. This feature is currently limited to users in the Release Preview channel and is not yet available on stable Windows 11 builds.
The new text extraction capability is part of Phone Link version 1.24051.91.0 and has been tested in Insider Preview Build 22635.3646 (Beta Channel). Initial tests suggest that the OCR functionality is adequate but not as precise as the built-in text extractors found on Samsung or Apple devices. For longer text passages, users might find it more efficient to use cross-device copy and paste, extracting the text on their phones before transferring it to their PCs.
Comparison with Existing Tools
Windows has recently integrated OCR technology into the Snipping Tool, enabling users to extract text from images and paste it into various applications. However, the Snipping Tool requires the image to be locally accessible, either through a phone connection or by saving the photos on the PC. The new Phone Link feature simplifies this process by only requiring the phone to be connected to the PC via the app.
