Search the text in your images
Every image is read on your Mac as soon as it’s saved: the words on a website, a menu, a receipt, a slide. Search finds them, along with titles, the site an image came from and what it shows, like “dog”, “beach” or “coat”.
In the viewer, all the text in an image is ready to copy, and Live Text lets you select it, open its links or lift the subject.
Search by color
Pick up to three colors from the palette, use the eyedropper anywhere on screen or type a #hex. The captures where those colors stand out most come first. In the viewer, click any color in an image’s palette to search with it.
Find images that look alike
From any capture, find the ones that look like it across your whole library. It’s the quickest way to rediscover an idea with a different composition, perspective or color.
Describe it in your own words
“A blue pricing table with a monthly toggle.” Smart Search adds local descriptions to your images so you can find them the way you remember them.
Smart Search requires macOS 27, Apple silicon and Apple Intelligence enabled with a compatible model downloaded. Text, color and similarity search work from macOS 26, including on Intel.
Searches that keep working
Save a text or color search and it becomes a collection that fills itself: new references that match appear there automatically, without filing them again.
Search without opening Ambrel
- Spotlight finds captures and boards by title, site, tags and content. Including OCR text is optional.
- Visual Intelligence finds images in your library that look like something on your screen. Requires macOS 27 and a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence.
- Shortcuts and Siri include actions to search and open references.
It all happens on your Mac
Text, colors and similarity are calculated locally. There’s no account and your library isn’t uploaded anywhere. Try the live search demo on a sample library, right in your browser.