is there an app that can identify fonts?

If you want the widest search

WhatFontIs matches an uploaded image against over 1.2 million free and commercial fonts, by its own count, and shows 60+ similar fonts per search, with links to where each one can be downloaded or licensed. It describes itself as an AI-powered font finder.

The cost is the daily cap. The free plan identifies up to 5 fonts per day and is supported by ads. It also has no native app, though its FAQ says it works fully in a phone or tablet browser, and there is a Chrome extension for fonts on webpages. You use it through a browser rather than an icon on your home screen.

If your fonts live in pictures, fine, but plenty of people have the opposite problem: words written by hand that they'd rather have typed. There's a separate answer for handwriting to text, and it covers MyScript Notes, Goodnotes, OneNote on Windows and Transkribus for scans of old documents. Most of them need a pen and tablet, a Windows pen device or a paid plan.

If you want a free phone app

WhatTheFont is MyFonts' font identifier: take a photo of a design and it shows font matches. It is free on the UK App Store with no in-app purchases listed and free to install on Google Play, where it is listed under Monotype, and its listings say it is powered by AI. You can type your own words into the matches to see how they would look in your own heading.

What you give up is confidence. It is rated 2.8 out of 5 from 110 ratings on the UK App Store and 2.6 from 7.91k reviews on Google Play, and the results are a list of possibilities. WhatFontIs publishes a comparison putting WhatTheFont's database at around 270,000 fonts against around 1,200,000 for itself. Those are WhatFontIs's figures about a competitor, not independent ones.

If you only want free fonts

Font Squirrel's Matcherator, powered by the Fontspring Matcherator, runs in a browser. You upload an image and it suggests matching fonts, and an 'Only Free Fonts' option keeps the results to fonts you will not have to pay for. It also lets you crop, rotate and label the letters by hand when automatic matching struggles. That hands-on control is its main draw.

It works best on clean, separate letters. Font Squirrel's own tips say script and connected fonts do not work well, and that touching letters need separating first. No price or sign-in is shown on the page, and Font Squirrel says it relies on advertising. WhatFontIs's comparison puts the Fontspring Matcherator's database at around 75,000 fonts, again by WhatFontIs's count.

If you already work in Adobe apps

Adobe Capture is Adobe's camera app that turns photos into colour palettes, vectors, patterns and fonts. Photograph type on a sign or label and it lists similar Adobe Fonts, then saves what you capture to Creative Cloud Libraries for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and other Adobe apps.

What you give up is the actual name. It suggests similar Adobe Fonts rather than naming any font, so you get a close substitute from Adobe's library rather than a font from another foundry. It also works through a Creative Cloud account. It is free on the UK App Store with in-app purchases, and the only in-app purchase on the UK listing is extra storage, 20 GB at £1.79, which the description puts at US$1.99 a month. The free basic Creative Cloud membership includes 2GB of storage.

When paying is worth it

Only WhatFontIs sells a plan for identifying fonts. PRO is US$49.99 a year, or US$74.90 billed once every 3 years, with a 7-day free trial. It gives you unlimited searches, no ads and 100 results per search instead of 60.

It is worth it only if you keep hitting the free plan's limit of 5 fonts per day. If you identify a font now and then, the free options cover you, and the trial lets you find out before spending anything.

Some type is harder to match. Font Squirrel says script and connected fonts do not work well in its Matcherator, and advises cropping to the letters, separating touching letters and raising contrast. WhatFontIs says rare, custom or poor quality fonts may not be identified, and also advises high contrast images. Handwritten or script lettering is the case both tools warn about.

Then there is the licence. Finding a font's name does not give you the right to use it. WhatFontIs says commercial fonts need a paid licence, and that free fonts are personal or commercial depending on their licence, so check before using any font in a logo or branding.

Ratings need care too. WhatTheFont is rated 2.8 out of 5 from 110 ratings on the UK App Store and 2.6 from 7.91k reviews on Google Play, against 4.8 from 4k ratings for Adobe Capture on the UK App Store. Capture does far more than fonts, so the two scores are not measuring the same job.