Textractor does not run natively on a Mac. It is a Windows program that hooks into a game's process, and macOS has no equivalent of that. You can run it under Wine, or you can stop hooking and read the screen with OCR, which is slower and less exact but works on any game you can see.
Why Textractor is Windows only
Textractor's GitHub page describes it as an open-source x86/x64 video game text hooker for Windows 7 and later, with Wine mentioned in brackets. It injects a small component into the game's process, listens to the functions the game uses to draw text, and sends the result to a separate window.
That is why it is so accurate: it gets the exact string the game was about to draw, not a picture of it. It is also why it cannot just be recompiled for a Mac. The injection trick, the Windows game and the x86 code are all Windows things. As of November 2026 there is no macOS build on that page.
Route one: run it under Wine
Wine lets Windows programs run on a Mac, and Textractor lists it as supported. CrossOver is the packaged version for Mac. Its site says it runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, offers a two-week trial, and showed a price of €74 when checked in November 2026.
Textractor has to sit in the same Wine setup as the game, so the game has to run there too. Plenty of Windows visual novels do. Some will not, and no particular title has been tested for this page. This is the route for a game that is Windows only and runs acceptably under Wine, where you want the clean text a hook gives you.
Older guides point at Game2Text. Its README lists Mac OSX Mojave and Catalina, which is a long way behind a current Mac.
Route two: read the screen with OCR
OCR does not need to touch the game at all. It looks at the pixels, so it does not care what engine the game uses, whether it is running in Wine, an emulator, a streaming window or a browser. That is also its weakness: it reads what is drawn, so a stylised font, text over a busy background or a fast typewriter effect can come back wrong or half finished. A hook is faster and cleaner when it works.
OwOCR supports macOS. By default it watches the clipboard for images and writes recognised text back to the clipboard, and on a Mac it can use Apple's own text recognition. Its README says the Live Text engine added vertical text reading in macOS Sonoma. It is a Python tool, so you run it from the terminal and feed the text to whatever pop-up dictionary you use.
meikipop reads Japanese anywhere on screen and shows a dictionary pop-up when you point at it. Windows and Linux are its main platforms. macOS works through community contributions, so expect less testing, and you have to give your terminal Input Monitoring, Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions. Its default local engine is built for horizontal text in games and is described as weak on vertical text. The other option is Google Lens, which is more accurate but sends the image over the internet.
Route three: LeafyApp
LeafyApp is the lightest of these to set up and the least specialised. Press ⌥A while the game is on screen and drag a box over the line. macOS text recognition reads that patch of screen, and an AI explains the word for the sense that sentence is using. The word is saved with its sentence, the source and the date.
It works on any game window for the same reason OCR does, since it only needs the text to be visible. There is no hook to find, no Wine prefix and no terminal.
What it does not do matters for game mining. It does not capture the game's audio or a screenshot for your card, so a card from LeafyApp has the word, the sentence and the meaning but no voice line or scene picture. If those are the point of your cards, a hook-based setup with a card creator is still the better tool. LeafyApp makes no promise about vertical Japanese text. If your game sets text vertically, try it on a line first.
Which one to pick
A Windows-only game that runs well in CrossOver, where you want clean text and audio on your cards: Wine plus Textractor. A game that will not run there, or an emulator, or something that is not a game at all: OCR. If you read in short sessions and care more about keeping the sentences you met than about card media, LeafyApp.
Outside games, the same screen reading covers manga, PDFs and screenshots, which is a separate page: Japanese OCR on a Mac. If your trouble is a browser extension that quietly stopped working, see when Yomitan is not working.
Where the picture goes
The picture is read on your Mac and thrown away. Only the word and its sentence go out so the AI can explain it, with nothing attached that says who you are. Your saved library stays on the Mac. The privacy page lists exactly what is sent. That matters if you play something you would rather keep off a server.
Questions people ask
Is there a Textractor for Mac? No. Textractor is a Windows program, and its own page lists Windows 7 and later, with Wine as the only mention of anything else. On a Mac you run it under Wine or use an OCR tool instead.
How do I read Japanese visual novels on a Mac? Either run the game and Textractor together under Wine or CrossOver, or use screen OCR on the game window. Wine gives cleaner text, OCR works on any game you can see. See Japanese OCR on a Mac for the non-game cases.
Is there a texthooker for Mac? Textractor, the usual texthooker, is Windows only. On a Mac the common substitute is OCR: OwOCR supports macOS, reads images and sends the recognised text to the clipboard or a websocket, which a texthooker page can pick up.
What is the best Japanese OCR for games on Mac? OwOCR and meikipop both run on macOS, with caveats: OwOCR is a terminal tool, and meikipop's macOS support comes from community contributions. LeafyApp reads a boxed patch of the screen with ⌥A and saves the sentence, but it does not capture audio or screenshots.
Does Game2Text work on Mac? Its README lists Mac OSX Mojave and Catalina, so it targets old macOS releases. Check the repository before relying on it on a current Mac.
No hook needed. Just box the line.
Free while LeafyApp is in beta. One download, macOS 14 and up.
Textractor, Wine, CrossOver, OwOCR, meikipop, Game2Text and Google Lens are trademarks or names of their respective owners. LeafyApp is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, and the names are used here only to describe compatibility and for comparison.