How to Enable Text Selection in the Poe Desktop App

Locate the installation folder for Poe, such as C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Poe\.

There will be a folder named with a version number, like app-1.1.21. Find the folder with the latest version, then navigate to the resources folder. Inside, you’ll find app.asar, which is the file you need to modify.

1. Install the asar tool First, install the asar tool, a command-line utility for working with .asar files.

If you don’t understand the following instructions, you should learn how to install and use npm commands.

npm install -g asar

npm install -g asar

2. Extract app.asar Use the asar tool to extract app.asar.

asar extract path/to/app.asar path/to/output

asar extract path/to/app.asar path/to/output

For example: Open a command prompt in the folder where app.asar is located and type:

asar extract app.asar extracted

asar extract app.asar extracted

This will create a folder named extracted in the current directory, containing the extracted contents.

3. Modify preload.js Locate extracted/dist/preload.js and add the following code at the end:

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  const style = document.createElement('style');
  style.textContent = 'body { user-select: text; }';
  document.head.appendChild(style);
});

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  const style = document.createElement('style');
  style.textContent = 'body { user-select: text; }';
  document.head.appendChild(style);
});

4. Repackage app.asar Return to the folder containing app.asar and open a command prompt. Enter:

asar pack extracted _app.asar

asar pack extracted _app.asar

5. Modify app.asar Now, a new file named _app.asar will appear within the app.asar folder. This is your updated app.asar. You can back up the original app.asar and then rename _app.asar to app.asar, replacing the old file.

6. Restart Poe After restarting Poe, you will notice that the text content is selectable now.