Printers and scanners on the Mac: AirPrint, drivers and what changes after Rosetta

Printers are the device most Mac users want to think about the least and complain about the most. In this part of the series Mac and the rest of the world we look at printers and scanners: what AirPrint actually does, when you still need a driver from the manufacturer, why some older printers will run into trouble after macOS 27, and how to scan without installing anything.

Driverless printing: AirPrint and IPP Everywhere

In the old days every printer needed its own driver: a piece of manufacturer software that tells your Mac how to talk to that particular device. These days most printers work driverless. Your Mac and the printer speak a standard language (IPP, the Internet Printing Protocol), and the printer itself reports which paper sizes, colour modes and duplex options it supports.

Apple calls this AirPrint. There’s also IPP Everywhere, the open standard from the Printer Working Group that does largely the same thing in practice. macOS supports both. The benefit is real: no installer, no background processes, no updates to keep track of.

Apple keeps a list of printers and scanners that support AirPrint on its About AirPrint page, where you can search by brand and model. One detail Apple points out itself: some models are listed as “USB only”. Those work driverless, but only when connected to the Mac with a cable.

What you sometimes lose with AirPrint are advanced features such as poster printing across several sheets, detailed colour profiles for photo printers, or stapling and hole punching on office machines. For everyday printing of documents, tickets and photos, AirPrint is enough for most people in 2026.

Adding a printer

An AirPrint printer on the same network often shows up in the print dialog by itself. To add it permanently, open System Settings > Printers & Scanners and click the button to add a printer. The window that appears lists the printers your Mac can find on the network. Pick yours and look at what the driver field says. If it says AirPrint, you’re set. If it shows the name of a specific manufacturer driver, your Mac is using software you installed at some point.

If your Mac doesn’t find the printer automatically, you can add it by IP address. It’s usually shown in the printer’s own menu. Choose IPP as the protocol if the printer supports it.

Older printers and the end of Rosetta

This is where the real problem sits right now. macOS 27 Golden Gate runs only on Macs with Apple silicon, and it’s the last version with full Rosetta 2 support. From macOS 28, Rosetta only sticks around in limited form for some games. What that means in general is covered in our piece on the end of Rosetta and Intel apps on the Mac.

For printers it works like this. A manufacturer driver consists of components that macOS loads while printing, often plus a utility for maintenance, ink levels or firmware updates. If those pieces were only built for Intel, they run on an Apple silicon Mac through Rosetta. Once Rosetta goes, that part stops working. On support forums you can already find owners of older Canon, Epson and HP models whose manufacturer update utility, for example, is still Intel only. How big the problem will be per model is hard to say right now, because manufacturers rarely communicate clearly about it.

The practical rule of thumb:

• If your printer supports AirPrint, use AirPrint and not the old driver. Then the end of Rosetta barely affects you.
• If you deliberately use the manufacturer driver, check the support site for an Apple silicon or universal version.
• If your printer is from before roughly 2012 and doesn’t support AirPrint, expect it to become a headache after macOS 27. The open source Gutenprint driver collection sometimes helps, but it takes some digging.

Manufacturer apps: useful or unnecessary?

• HP has merged HP Smart and myHP into a single app now simply called HP. HP itself says you need an HP account for full functionality. Printers with HP+ go further: if you activate HP+ during setup, HP’s own terms tie you to an HP account, an internet connection and original HP ink for the lifetime of the printer. On many models you can skip HP+ during setup, but read carefully what you’re agreeing to.
• Brother iPrint&Scan is free in the Mac App Store and, according to available information, runs natively on Apple silicon. It’s mainly useful for scanning to PDF or email with more options than macOS offers out of the box.
• Canon and Epson mostly offer separate utilities per task: scanning software, an updater, a maintenance tool. Their well known “PRINT” and “Smart Panel” apps are mainly for iPhone and iPad. Whether each Mac component already runs natively differs per model and per program.

My advice: install the manufacturer app when you need it for something macOS can’t do, such as a firmware update, ordering ink or scanning to a network folder. For everyday printing you usually don’t need it.

Scanning without extra software

macOS has two built-in ways to scan. The first is Image Capture, in your Applications folder. Your scanner or multifunction printer appears in the sidebar, and you can choose resolution, size and destination and save the scan as a PDF or image. The second is Preview: from the File menu you can import from a scanner, and the result opens straight away as a document.

Behind the scenes, both apps use either driverless scanning (many AirPrint multifunction printers can also scan driverless) or a so-called ICA driver (Image Capture Architecture) from the manufacturer. Those ICA drivers are exactly the parts that may still be Intel only on older devices. If scanning stops working after an update while printing still works, this is often why.

With multifunction devices it generally goes like this: printing almost always works through AirPrint, scanning often does too, faxing almost never.

Network, USB or Wi-Fi Direct

A tip for network printers: give the printer a fixed IP address in your router. That prevents a large share of “printer offline” messages.

Printing from your iPhone

iPhone and iPad don’t have printer drivers at all. It’s AirPrint or the manufacturer’s app. Open the document or photo, tap the share button and choose Print. The printer has to be on the same Wi-Fi network. If it doesn’t show up, it probably doesn’t support AirPrint or AirPrint is switched off on the printer.

What should you do? Decision table

When it doesn’t work: checklist

• Are the Mac and the printer on the same network? Guest networks and mesh systems sometimes keep devices apart.
• Restart in this order: router, printer, Mac.
• Remove the printer in Printers & Scanners and add it again, this time with AirPrint.
• Is a job stuck? Open the print queue, delete all jobs and try again.
• If nothing helps, reset the whole printing system. Control-click in the printer list in Printers & Scanners and choose Reset Printing System. Afterwards all printers are gone and you add them again. Apple describes this in the Mac User Guide.
• Check Apple’s AirPrint list to see whether your model is really on it.

Step-by-step plan

1. Look up your printer model on Apple’s AirPrint list.
2. If it’s there, remove the printer from Printers & Scanners and add it again using AirPrint.
3. Test printing and scanning (via Image Capture) and see whether you miss anything.
4. If you do, check the manufacturer’s support site for software for Apple silicon and macOS 27.
5. If you still rely on Intel-only printer software, write that down and plan an alternative before you move to macOS 28.
6. Give network printers a fixed IP address in your router.
7. When buying new, pick a model with AirPrint and take a critical look at account and subscription requirements.

And with Apple?

Apple hasn’t made printers since the late nineties, and that isn’t going to change. What Apple does do well is keep AirPrint and driverless scanning built into macOS and iOS, so you don’t need any manufacturer software for most modern printers. The honest flip side is that Apple doesn’t write drivers for other companies’ printers. If your manufacturer drops an old model, there’s little Apple can do about it.

This whitepaper describes the situation in October 2026, with macOS 27 Golden Gate and iOS 27. Manufacturer support changes regularly. When in doubt, always check the support page for your own printer model.

This article is part of the Mac and the rest of the world series, where you’ll find every part in one place.