Help & support.
Direct answers about capture, on-device analysis, and what leaves your device.
Capture, ask, read.
capture · preset · answerNo setup required. Start with the bundled sample label, which needs no permissions at all. The Mac app opens with it the first time you launch.
Capture.
Use the camera, press Option-X on a Mac to drag a box over any display, open an image file or photo, or start with the bundled sample.
Ask.
Pick the preset that matches what you are looking at and type your question.
Read.
The answer is labelled with its source, so you know whether it was computed on your device. Nothing reaches the clipboard until you click Copy.
Vision, stated honestly.
on-device · providers · permissionsThe app tells you what it detected and how confident it is. It does not invent answers it cannot support.
Press Option-X anywhere, or choose “Explain Screen Region” from the menu bar icon, then drag a box over the part of the screen you care about and release. The capture opens in the floating panel: pick a preset, type your question or leave it empty, and press Analyze. The first time, macOS asks you to allow Screen Recording in System Settings; the app uses it only when you start a capture.
On the Ask tab, tap Take Photo, pick an image from your photo library, or open a PNG, JPEG, HEIC or TIFF from Files. Try Sample Image loads a bundled product label and needs no permissions. Then pick a preset, ask your question and tap Analyze.
Yes. On a Mac, press Option-X and drag a box over a compiler error, a stack trace or a dialog, or photograph a screen with your iPhone or iPad, then choose the Errors & Screens preset. A written answer gives the message in plain language, the likely cause and the first thing to try, and says so when the visible text is cut off. Without a written answer you get the text it read.
With the default On-device setting, all image reading happens on your Mac, iPhone or iPad: Apple's on-device text recognition, image classification, and barcode and QR decoding. On macOS 26 or iOS 26 and later with Apple Intelligence turned on, Apple's on-device language model writes the answer from those readings. It still runs on the device and never receives the image itself, only the text, labels and codes that were read. Nothing needs the internet unless you connect a hosted provider of your own.
That is the honest fallback. Without a written answer, Ohms Explain reports exactly what it read: the recognised text with its measured confidence, the likely subject, and any decoded code. The answer ends with the reason, for example that Apple Intelligence is turned off in System Settings, is still downloading, is not supported on this device, needs macOS 26 or iOS 26, or could not write an answer for this image.
Printed text is read in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese, plus the languages set on your device wherever Apple's text recognition supports them. The app itself is in English.
Choose “Explain from Camera” from the menu bar. You can pick a built-in camera, an external one, or your iPhone via Continuity Camera. macOS asks for Camera permission the first time. The shutter hands the photo straight to the analysis panel; photos are analyzed in memory and never written to disk.
Only when you click Copy (Copy Answer on iPhone and iPad). Share and Save also act only when you use them, and Save writes one plain-text file to the place you choose.
No. There is no account, and the app works fully offline. A provider is optional: add your own API key for a hosted vision provider you already use, or on a Mac point the app at a model server running on that Mac. Settings lists the providers it supports.
Only when you select a hosted provider and press Analyze: the image as a downscaled JPEG, the preset's instructions and your question go straight from your device to that provider's API under your own key. Silo Systems runs no server and receives no copy. Each hosted provider is labelled SENDS IMAGE in Settings so this is never ambiguous. Read your provider's own retention policy.
In the Keychain, under the app's own identifier. Never in preferences, files, or logs, and never transmitted to Silo Systems. Remove Key deletes the key and switches back to On-device if that provider was active.
History stores your question, the preset, the answer text and its source, never the image. It is one local plain-text file inside the app's own storage and holds the latest 200 entries. Search it, delete any entry, or clear it entirely from the History window on a Mac or the History tab on iPhone and iPad.
No. It reads what is printed on packaging, such as ingredients, allergens, weights, dates and codes, and every answer it produces carries an informational-only note. It is not a substitute for professional medical, dietary, or safety advice.
A one-time App Store purchase at $29.99 that covers the Mac, iPhone and iPad versions. No subscription, no credits, no account. Any provider you connect bills you directly under your own key.