How to use Live Text on a video in iOS 16

Live Text arrived with the introduction of iOS 15, revolutionizing the way iPhone users could copy, select, and take other actions with text in a photo. Now with iOS 16, the feature's made its way to videos as well, making your iPhone just a bit more useful.

Whether you're trying to snap a quick video of a billboard with a phone number you might need, or happen to notice an important message in the background of an existing video, here's a step-by-step guide on how to use Live Text via video.

1. Take the video.

Open up your Camera app and slide on over to the video function. Take a video with some text in it.

2. Open the video, and play through or scrub through until a point where text is clearly visible.

Now you can scrape information from a shaky video. Credit: Apple

You can only use Live Text in a video when playing it back, not when still actively capturing the video in the Camera app. The video will also have to be paused before proceeding to the next step.

3. Press and hold on the desired text until a blue highlight appears.

This feature can even pick up blurry text like this. Credit: Apple

Similar to how text selection normally functions in apps like Messages or Notes, you will be able to adjust the amount of text selected by moving the light blue bars on either side of the highlighted portion.

4. Now choose what to do with the selected text.

From here, it's like using any other highlighted text. Credit: Apple

From there, do with your Live Text whatever you please — you can copy, select all, look up, translate, search web, or share.