# Does OCR work offline? — DocFind Last reviewed: October 8, 2026. HTML version: https://docfindapp.com/answers/does-ocr-work-offline **It can. OCR that runs on your own phone or computer needs no connection; OCR that sends the page to a company's servers stops working when you go offline. The catch is finding out which kind a given feature is.** Of the pages we read today, Apple's Vision framework, Chrome's PDF viewer on a computer and Files by Google's Smart Search are documented as working on the device; Adobe Scan lists a network connection as required for its OCR; and the help pages for Live Text and Google Lens do not say either way. | Tool | What its maker's page says | |---|---| | Apple Vision (the framework apps use) | Processing "happens on the user’s device" | | Live Text (iPhone) | Does not say where it runs or whether it needs a connection ([*Interact with content in a photo or video on iPhone*, iPhone User Guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/interact-text-subjects-photos-iph37fdd714b/ios), read 8 October 2026) | | Chrome PDF viewer (computer) | OCR "completed on your device" | | Files by Google Smart Search | "Scanning happens on your device" | | Google ML Kit (in Android apps) | Bundled model is inside the app; unbundled model downloads first | | Google Lens | Does not say whether it needs a connection; activity can be saved to your Google Account ([*Get info about your photos & surroundings*, Google Photos Help](https://support.google.com/photos/answer/7539151?hl=en), read 8 October 2026) | | Google Drive, convert to text | Steps start in Google Drive on a computer | | Adobe Scan (iPhone) | "A network connection and an Adobe cloud storage connection is required" | ## iPhone: Vision is on-device; Live Text's page does not say

Apple's developer documentation for its text-recognition framework is explicit: "In all cases, all of Vision’s processing happens on the user’s device to enhance performance and user privacy" ([*Recognizing Text in Images*, Apple Developer Documentation](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision/recognizing-text-in-images), read 8 October 2026). That is a statement about the framework that apps build on. Apple's iPhone guide to Live Text says it "recognizes text within your photos, videos, and images you find online" and lists what you can do with that text (copy, translate, look up, share, quick actions such as a phone call), with the caveat that "Live Text isn’t available in all regions or languages". It says nothing about whether the recognition runs on the device or needs a connection, and it does not say Live Text uses Vision ([*Interact with content in a photo or video on iPhone*, iPhone User Guide](https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/interact-text-subjects-photos-iph37fdd714b/ios), read 8 October 2026). So we will not tell you Live Text works offline on Apple's authority; put the phone in airplane mode and try it. [Our Live Text page](https://docfindapp.com/answers/live-text-on-iphone) covers what it can do.

## Android: Files by Google, ML Kit and Lens

Files by Google's Smart Search reads "Text from images and .pdf" so you can find a file by its contents, and Google says "Scanning happens on your device so your information doesn’t leave your device" ([*Search for a file*, Files by Google Help](https://support.google.com/files/answer/9765316?hl=en), read 8 October 2026).

For apps built on Google's ML Kit, the answer depends on how the developer packaged it. Google's documentation lists two options: bundled, where the "Model is statically linked to your app at build time", and unbundled, where the "Model is dynamically downloaded via Google Play Services". For the second, unless the app arranges the download in advance, "the model is downloaded the first time you run the scanner. Requests you make before the download has completed produce no results" ([*Recognize text in images with ML Kit on Android*, Google for Developers](https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/vision/text-recognition/v2/android), read 8 October 2026). In other words, an app using the unbundled model needs a connection at least once before its OCR works.

Google Lens is the one people reach for, and its help page we read describes what Lens does and how to "find and delete your Google Lens activity", adding "If you don't want your Google Lens activity saved to your Google Account, turn off Web & App Activity". It does not say whether Lens needs a connection ([*Get info about your photos & surroundings*, Google Photos Help](https://support.google.com/photos/answer/7539151?hl=en), read 8 October 2026).

## On a computer: Chrome and Google Drive

Chrome's PDF viewer on a computer recognises scanned PDFs itself: they "are automatically converted to be searchable and selectable using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)", and "The conversion is completed on your device without sending any data to Google or third parties" ([*Manage PDFs in Chrome* (computer), Google Chrome Help](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/16215622?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop), read 8 October 2026).

Google Drive's text conversion is the opposite shape. Its steps are "On your computer, go to Google Drive", right-click the file, and "Click Open with Google Docs", with a file of "2 MB or smaller" ([*Convert PDF and photo files to text*, Google Drive Help](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?hl=en), read 8 October 2026). The page does not say where the recognition runs, but the file has to be in your Drive and the steps begin at Google Drive on the web, so plan on needing a connection.

## Adobe Scan: a connection is listed as required

Adobe's troubleshooting page for Adobe Scan on iPhone, under "Why does OCR not appear to work on parts of my document?", lists conditions that "may impair OCR quality", and one of them is "A network connection and an Adobe cloud storage connection is required" ([*Troubleshoot — Adobe Scan for iOS*, Adobe](https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/adobescan/ios/en/troubleshooting.html), read 8 October 2026). Scanning offline and expecting searchable text straight away is therefore not something Adobe's page supports.

## Checking any app yourself

For any app not covered here, the test is one you can run yourself: switch on airplane mode and try the OCR on a page you have not processed before. [Searching PDFs without uploading them](https://docfindapp.com/answers/search-pdfs-offline-without-uploading) explains what that test proves and what it cannot.

## Where DocFind fits

[DocFind](https://docfindapp.com/) does its OCR on the phone: Apple's Vision on iPhone, and on Android a Google ML Kit model bundled inside the app rather than downloaded later. It reads scanned PDFs on your device, then searches them like any other document. Searching, indexing, reading scanned pages and exporting all work with no internet connection. DocFind never uploads your documents.

Its limits: it is built for printed text, so handwriting is beyond it, and on Android its model covers Latin-script print only, so scanned pages in other scripts stay unsearchable there. It handles PDFs only, and it runs on iPhone and Android.

Related: [Search PDFs offline without uploading](https://docfindapp.com/answers/search-pdfs-offline-without-uploading) · [What is OCR?](https://docfindapp.com/answers/what-is-ocr) · [How long does OCR take?](https://docfindapp.com/answers/how-long-does-ocr-take) · [Live Text on iPhone](https://docfindapp.com/answers/live-text-on-iphone)