diff --git a/src/routes/_components/dialog/components/MediaAltEditor.html b/src/routes/_components/dialog/components/MediaAltEditor.html
index 875a1804..e73c68d7 100644
--- a/src/routes/_components/dialog/components/MediaAltEditor.html
+++ b/src/routes/_components/dialog/components/MediaAltEditor.html
@@ -35,6 +35,11 @@
       {/if}
     </span>
   </button>
+  <LengthGauge
+    length={extractionProgress}
+    overLimit={false}
+    max={100}
+  />
 </div>
 <style>
   .media-alt-editor {
@@ -124,7 +129,8 @@
       rawText: '',
       mediaAltCharLimit: MEDIA_ALT_CHAR_LIMIT,
       extracting: false,
-      className: ''
+      className: '',
+      extractionProgress: 0
     }),
     computed: {
       length: ({ rawText }) => length(rawText || ''),
@@ -176,17 +182,22 @@
         this.set({ extracting: true })
         try {
           const { url } = this.get()
+          const onProgress = progress => {
+            requestAnimationFrame(() => {
+              this.set({ extractionProgress: progress * 100 })
+            })
+          }
           const file = mediaUploadFileCache.get(url)
           let text
           if (file) { // Avoid downloading from the network a file that the user *just* uploaded
             const fileUrl = URL.createObjectURL(file)
             try {
-              text = await runTesseract(fileUrl)
+              text = await runTesseract(fileUrl, onProgress)
             } finally {
               URL.revokeObjectURL(fileUrl)
             }
           } else {
-            text = await runTesseract(url)
+            text = await runTesseract(url, onProgress)
           }
           const { media, index, realm } = this.get()
           if (media[index].description !== text) {
@@ -201,6 +212,11 @@
           )
         } finally {
           this.set({ extracting: false })
+          setTimeout(() => {
+            requestAnimationFrame(() => {
+              this.set({ extractionProgress: 0 })
+            })
+          }, 400)
         }
       }
     },
diff --git a/src/routes/_utils/runTesseract.js b/src/routes/_utils/runTesseract.js
index ce7454fd..bb93cfe8 100644
--- a/src/routes/_utils/runTesseract.js
+++ b/src/routes/_utils/runTesseract.js
@@ -1,6 +1,25 @@
 import { importTesseractWorker } from '../_utils/asyncModules'
 
-export async function runTesseract (url) {
+// TODO: it's flaky to try to estimate tesseract's total progress this way
+const steps = [
+  { status: 'loading tesseract core', proportion: 0.05 },
+  { status: 'initializing tesseract', proportion: 0.05 },
+  { status: 'loading language traineddata', proportion: 0.1 },
+  { status: 'initializing api', proportion: 0.2 },
+  { status: 'recognizing text', proportion: 0.6 }
+]
+
+function getTotalProgress (progressInfo) {
+  const idx = steps.findIndex(({ status }) => progressInfo.status === status)
+  let total = 0
+  for (let i = 0; i < idx; i++) {
+    total += steps[i].proportion
+  }
+  total += steps[idx].proportion * progressInfo.progress
+  return total
+}
+
+export async function runTesseract (url, onProgress) {
   const worker = await importTesseractWorker()
 
   // TODO: have to trick tesseract into not creating a blob URL because that would break our CSP
@@ -13,7 +32,12 @@ export async function runTesseract (url) {
   } finally {
     window.Blob = OldBlob
   }
-  promise.progress(_ => console.log('progress', _))
+  promise.progress(progressInfo => {
+    console.log('progress', progressInfo)
+    if (onProgress && steps.find(({ status }) => status === progressInfo.status)) {
+      onProgress(getTotalProgress(progressInfo))
+    }
+  })
   const res = await promise
   return res.text
 }