How to scan QR codes on iMac running Sequoia?

JoanneL3 wrote:

I misstated my question. I want to scan QR codes that are on paper & not "on the Mac". I want the Mac to interpret a QR code from a paper document. I hope that makes sense.

There is no built-in app that can read paper QR codes on an iMac. But there is a workaround in addition to 3rd-party QR reader apps in the Mac App Store. The workarounds:

Use PhotoBooth to take a picture of the QR code using the webcam in your iMac. Save the image to your desktop. Open Safari. Do File > Open File to open the image file in Safari. Right-click the image in Safari and select Open "... <the url> ...." in New Tab

Alternatively you could scan the paper QR code with a scanner, save the image file to your Desktop then follow the above Safari procedure.

The following AppleScript will scan a QR Code image and output the string value associated with it. I have a QR Code jpeg here that has the string "https://www.dc.com/mad" in it.

The following AppleScript code prompts for and then scans the QR Code image to retrieve its message string. You launch Apple's Script Editor and create a new AppleScript document on your Desktop. Then, you copy/paste the following code into it, click the hammer compile button, and then run it.

use framework "Cocoa"
use framework "CoreImage"
use scripting additions

property ca : current application

set thisImg to POSIX path of (choose file of type {"public.image"}) as «class furl»
set nsImg to ca's NSImage's alloc()'s initWithContentsOfURL:thisImg
set ciImage to ca's |CIImage|'s imageWithData:(nsImg's TIFFRepresentation)
if ciImage is missing value then return

set detectorOptions to ca's NSDictionary's dictionaryWithObject:{(ca's CIDetectorAccuracyHigh)} forKey:{(ca's CIDectorAccuracy)}
set detector to ca's CIDetector's detectorOfType:(ca's CIDetectorTypeQRCode) context:(missing value) options:detectorOptions
set features to detector's featuresInImage:ciImage
if (count of (features as list)) is 0 then return -- not a QR Code

display dialog (features's messageString) as text with title "QR Code message text"
return

Tested: macOS Tahoe 26.3.1

What is the reason you want to "scan" QR codes on your Mac?

You can always do a screenshot. Also, most QR code displays include the actual string that the QR Code represents but you may have to click a disclosure triangle or button in the image to reveal the underlying code.

maybe Scanning QR code on Mac shortcut : r/shortcuts

How to Scan QR Code on Mac

more

How to scan QR codes on iMac running Sequoia - Google-

ps. In PhotoBooth, to save the image to your desktop, take the picture then either 1) drag the thumbnail to the desktop or 2) select the thumbnail then do File > Export.