The KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop environment is taking shape, and although there are still a few months to go before the final stable release—scheduled for February 17, 2026—some of the changes are already clear.
According to Plasma’s developer, Nate Graham, Plasma 6.6 is about to receive a significant enhancement: the built-in screenshot tool, Spectacle, will gain native Optical Character Recognition (OCR) support.
Up until now, taking a screenshot meant capturing a bitmap of text and images; if you wanted to extract the text, you’d need a separate tool. With Plasma 6.6, Spectacle will incorporate OCR so that text within screenshots becomes selectable and copy-ready.
Beyond OCR, Plasma 6.6 will also introduce several UI and workflow improvements designed to make the desktop feel smoother and more modern.
Here are some highlights:
- Overhauled portal-based permission dialogs: The permission dialogs used for sandboxed apps and services have been redesigned to offer a cleaner, more consistent appearance.
- Desktop rename behaviour improved: When renaming a file or folder on the desktop, Plasma now retains its position rather than resetting it. A small but noticeable quality-of-life fix.
- Merged timer widget config pages: The Timer widget now combines its previously separate configuration pages into a single, more intuitive interface.
- Single-page System Tray settings: Rather than multiple tabs, the system tray configuration is now consolidated into a single page, making it simpler to adjust padding, size, and entries in one place.
- Remembering shortcut permission decisions: If an application asks to register keyboard shortcuts and the user declines, Plasma now remembers that decision and won’t ask again — reducing repetitive prompts.
For more information, refer to Nate Graham’s “This Week in Plasma” post on the KDE Blog.
Image credits: KDE Project
