If you follow my blog or my projects, you know I’ve been working on image description for a while. It started with my Image Description Toolkit (IDT), which has been around for about a year and a half and is a full range of tools for working with AI models and descriptions. Earlier this week I released My Photo Library Described (MPLD), which uses the on-device AI on the Mac and Windows to describe your photo library as you browse it.
While building MPLD, I made a small test app to try Windows’ description technology outside the photo library. I’ve turned that test app into something of its own, and I’m calling it Quick Describe.
What Quick Describe Does
With Quick Describe running, press a hotkey from any app and get a description of:
- the screen
- the active window
- the item with focus
- a picture on the clipboard, or a picture file you’ve copied
You can also open a picture file in the app or paste one into the Quick Describe window.
Quick Describe comes to the foreground, reads the description automatically, and places focus in a text box with the description.
Quick Describe also runs Windows’ text recognition, so the text box has the description followed by the text in the picture.
Press Escape and you’re back where you were in Windows, with the hotkeys still working.
The descriptions come from the AI built into Windows on what Microsoft has been calling Copilot+ PCs. Nothing is uploaded, and there’s no account, no API key and no cost. On a PC without Windows AI, Quick Describe still reads the text in pictures; it just doesn’t describe them.
JAWS, NVDA, Narrator and other screen readers each have their own ways of describing what’s on screen. Quick Describe isn’t meant to replace those. It’s a simple app that uses only the on-device technology, for anyone who wants that, whatever screen reader they use. Quick Describe also works just fine without a screen reader.
The Keys
These are the defaults:
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S describes the screen.
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W describes the active window.
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F describes the item with focus.
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V describes the picture on the clipboard.
File, Settings changes them. In the demo below I’ve set mine to Ctrl+Shift with the same letters. Settings also chooses the description type: Accessible (the default), Detailed, Brief or Diagram. Those are the four kinds Windows offers. You can also have Quick Describe start when you sign in and keep running in the notification area.
Things to Know
- Screens full of text usually get their text, not a description. Right now, Windows’ AI declines to describe pictures that contain a lot of text, and most windows and screens do. Quick Describe tells you that and gives you the text instead. A photo, a chart or the item with focus usually gets a description. I’ve reported this to Microsoft, and they’ve said they’ll address it.
- You can’t ask follow-up questions about a picture yet. That needs another part of Windows’ on-device AI, which Microsoft lets apps use only with its approval. I’ve asked for that approval and am waiting to hear back.
- The first description takes the longest, up to half a minute while Windows loads its model, though it’s rarely that long. After that it takes a few seconds.
- Descriptions can be wrong. As with any AI description, check anything that matters.
Quick Describe in Action
Here is a short demo. I describe the Calculator screen and window, then copy a picture in File Explorer and paste it into Quick Describe. The speech you hear besides mine is JAWS reading Quick Describe’s results.
The full transcript is at the end of this post, and also as a text file. You can also download the audio.
Getting Quick Describe
Quick Describe needs Windows 11 and, for descriptions, what Microsoft has been calling a Copilot+ PC.
Install Quick Describe for Windows. Open the file you download, and App Installer installs the app and keeps it up to date. The Quick Describe guide has every keyboard shortcut and setting, and the releases page has the release notes.
Quick Describe is free and open source under the MIT license. It’s on my projects page along with everything else I’ve been building.
Feedback
I’d love to hear how Quick Describe works for you. Help, Report a Bug in the app sends a report without needing a GitHub account. You can also open an issue on GitHub or email support@theideaplace.net.
My Three Image Description Projects
A quick summary of how Quick Describe fits with my other image description work:
- Image Description Toolkit (IDT): Mac and Windows versions are available, with multiple AI providers, multiple AI prompts, both a command line and a graphical app, batch processing for large numbers of pictures, describing images from web addresses and more.
- My Photo Library Described (MPLD): install once and have your photo library described. There’s no configuration and no AI provider cost. It just works on Mac and Windows with the right hardware and operating system.
- Quick Describe: get a basic description of your screen, the active window, what’s on the clipboard or an image file, on what Microsoft has been calling Copilot+ PCs.
Transcript of the Demo
Kelly: Hello everyone, this is Kelly Ford, and I wanted to give a short demo of a new app I’m calling Quick Describe. If you follow my blog or my projects, you know I’ve been working on various image description projects for a while. I started with something I called the Image Description Toolkit, and that’s been around for about a year and a half. It is a full range of tools for working with AI models and descriptions. Earlier this week, I released something I called My Photo Library Described, and that uses on-device AI on both Mac and Windows to describe your default photo library or any folders you add to the product. I decided to add one more tool to the portfolio, if you will, and this is again something I’m calling Quick Describe. It’s really meant, once again right now only for Windows, to use the on-device AI, if you have what Microsoft used to call a Copilot PC, to do quick descriptions. So by running the app, you can press various hotkeys for a description of the screen, the active window, the item with focus, whatever’s on the clipboard, or give the app a file. It’s really meant to be that straightforward and that simple. And I know that JAWS, Narrator and NVDA have ways of doing this. This is just meant to be using only the on-device technology, and just a quick app for anybody that wants this, independent of whatever the screen reader offers. I’ll give you a short demo. So I’m in the Calculator app, and I’ve already launched Quick Describe. I’ve set my hotkeys, which you can customize in settings, to be Control, Shift and, for example, S for screen. So I’m going to press that.
JAWS: Describing screen. Quick Describe. Result edit, read only, contains text. Use your reading keys to read the text. The image displays a calculator interface with a black background and a black button bar. The calculator is set to standard mode. The display shows a number of zeros and buttons for mathematical operations, including MC clear, MR memory, M plus slash memory plus slash minus. The C button is selected, and the time is shown as 10:44 AM on the date 10/17/2026. 39 lines of text follow.
Kelly: So you’ll notice it also said 39 lines of text follow. The app also runs Windows OCR.
JAWS: Calculator, Standard.
Kelly: We’ll do Control Shift W for the active window.
JAWS: Describing active window. Calculator. Quick Describe. Result edit, read only, contains text. Use your reading keys to read the text. The image displays a calculator interface with a black background. The top part of the screen shows a number of buttons, which includes numbers 0 to 9.
Kelly: And I’ve stopped the reading. So let’s describe a picture. I’ve navigated to File Explorer, and I’ve got a file. There’s different ways I can do this. In this case, I’m going to hit Control C to copy it to my clipboard, and then I’m just going to paste it in the app.
JAWS: The image depicts a serene landscape with a clear, cloudless sky. In the foreground, a winding road threads through a mosaic of greenery, suggesting a rural, natural setting. The mountain range in the background shows a variety of elevations, from gentle slopes to steep, rugged peaks, in a gradient of shades from dark green to lighter, muted tones. The atmosphere is calm and peaceful, with the sky’s soft hues and the clear view of the mountains.
Kelly: So that’s just a short example of the sorts of things you can do with Quick Describe. Again: the screen, the active window, and, though I didn’t show it, the item with focus, and items on the clipboard. You can get a copy of Quick Describe, along with any of my other projects, on my project page, at theideaplace.net/projects. If you give any of my projects, including Quick Describe, a try, or have feedback, I’d love to hear about it.
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