How to Copy Text from Websites That Don’t Allow It [5 Ways]

Bypass website copying restrictions with these tips

by Vlad Turiceanu
Vlad Turiceanu
Vlad Turiceanu
Editor-in-Chief
Passionate about technology, Windows, and everything that has a power button, he spent most of his time developing new skills and learning more about the tech world. Coming... read more
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  • If a browser will not allow you to copy and paste, the website you're visiting disabled text selection.
  • You can easily fix the text selection problem if you switch to a different browser.
  • Disabling Javascript will also allow you to copy text from a website that has placed restrictions.

Usually, copying and pasting is a very simple action that can be performed by anyone, but sometimes you need to copy text from a website that does not allow it.

This can get pretty frustrating, especially if you need large chunks of text from a site for research purposes. While users have had trouble copying and pasting anything in Windows 10, the problem here is limited to the website. Let’s find out all about it.

Why can’t I copy text from a website?

In most cases, the website prevents you from copying text using a certain script. However, you can circumvent that by disabling specific browser components.

Alternatively, you can rely on extensions to help you get the text from a website. So be sure to keep on reading to find out how to enable copy-paste on a website.

The solutions and workarounds here will also help in the following cases:

  • How to copy and paste on websites that don’t allow – Chrome, Safari, and Firefox?
  • How to copy and paste when it won’t let you?
  • Enable copy-paste in restricted websites – how to copy-paste from websites that don’t allow it?
  • How to copy text from the web page that cannot be copied online?
  • How to copy text from a website that won’t let you Mac?
  • Copy text from a protected website online.
  • How to copy text from a website that doesn’t allow right-clicking?
  • How to enable text selection on a web page?

Quick Tip:

Not many browsers out there can brag about their excellent flexibility like Opera One. There are more than 1,000 ways to customize Opera One with the add-ons catalog at your discretion.

And about your copy-paste problem, in Opera One, you can set your own key combinations for almost any browser action, so you don’t need to rely on the precision of your mouse. That also means fast action!

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We have worked for the past 6 months on building a new review system on how we produce content. Using it, we have subsequently redone most of our articles to provide actual hands-on expertise on the guides we made.

For more details you can read how we test, review, and rate at WindowsReport.

Opera One

With Opera One, you can customize your keyboard shortcut and won’t have any more copy-paste issues.
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How can I copy from websites that won’t let me?

In this article

1. Disable JavaScript

1.1 Chrome

  1. Click the Menu button and then select Settings.
  2. Navigate to Privacy and security.

  3. Go to Site settings.

  4. Next, navigate to JavaScript.
  5. Select Don’t allow sites to turn Javascript.
  6. Go back to your page and refresh it.

If copy and paste is not working in Chrome, disabling the JavasScript might help.

1.2 Firefox 

  1. Type the following line in the address bar and confirm if any message appears: about:config

  2. Then you will see a list of Firefox preferences.
  3. In the search box at the top of the page type: javascript.enabled
  4. Then double-click it to change its value from true to false.
    javascript enabled about config firefox browser will not allow copy and paste

1.3 Opera One

  1. Start Opera One, then open the Easy Menu and then select Go to full browser settings.
    Search for Javascript.
  2. After that, go to Site settings, then select Javascript.
  3. Select Allowed to disable/enable it.

1.4 Edge

  1. Click the Menu button in the top right and select Settings.
  2. Search for javascript. Then select Javascript from the list of results.
  3. Disable the Allowed option.

Remember to re-enable JavaScript after you copied the content you need. Some sites rely on it, so to avoid future problems, enable it back.

2. Use the Print to PDF feature

  1. Open the page that doesn’t allow you to copy text.
  2. Now press Ctrl + P.
  3. A print dialog will appear. Set Destination to Save as PDF.
  4. Choose the destination, enter the file name, and then click on Save.
  5. Open the PDF file, and you should be able to copy text without issues.

This is a simple workaround, so you might want to try it out.

3. Create a screenshot of the website page that prevents you from copying text

  1. Visit a page that doesn’t allow you to copy text.
  2. Take a screenshot of a page.
  3. Save the file to your PC.
  4. Now visit any image to text converter website and upload your screenshot to convert it.

4. Use the Inspect element feature

Note icon NOTE
Besides all the text, you’ll see a lot of code, links to images, and other things, but it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to copy them for further use without jumping through a few hoops.

1. Open the website page from which you want to copy text.

2. Select the text that you want to copy.

select the text you want to copy on the website page

3. Right-click on it to bring up a menu with multiple options.

right click on the selected text

4. Select the Inspect option.

select the inspect option

5. The Inspect menu will open. Hover your mouse over the code section for the text you want to copy and right-click on it. Another menu will open.

right click on the code that opens

6. Click on Copy, and then select Copy element.

copy element from the code

7. Paste the copied text onto a document of your choice. You will notice that you copied the text along with its associated code. You need to manually remove the code parts from it.

Another method you can use involves the usage of the Inspect element feature. This solution is quite similar to that of copying text from the source code. It works in the same way.

However, the window that opens is much smaller and not as easy to navigate on. You need to perform multiple clicks for this to work.

After this, you can copy the content from the source code as following:

  1. Press Ctrl + U on the desired page, and you should see its code.
  2. Use Ctrl + F to navigate and find exactly what you need. view page source copy content from a website that doesn't allow it
  3. Copy the content that you want.

5. Allow copy-paste Chrome extension

  1. Visit the Disable JavaScript page in Firefox.
  2. Click on Add to Firefox.
  3. Once the extension is installed, click on it and configure it. The extension is available on other browsers as well, so be sure to try it.

There are extensions available that allow you to copy text even from websites that block it. They will force the website to enable right-clicking and allow you to copy content.

You can choose any of these extensions:

Chrome

Firefox

That’s it. Hope that one of these solutions helped you copy text from a website that doesn’t allow copy and paste.

Your browser isn’t the only application affected by this issue, and many users reported that copy and paste aren’t working on the Remote Desktop. Also, find out how to open Clipboard on Windows 11 and try out the user-friendly feature.

If you’re aware of another method to copy content from websites that don’t allow it, share it in the comments section below and any other questions you may have.

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