I’m trying to print directly from my iPhone but I’m not sure how to do it. I have a wireless printer but my phone doesn’t seem to connect to it. What are the steps for printing from an iPhone? Any specific app needed or settings I should configure?
Ugh, iPhones and printers, the ultimate love story doomed to fail unless you jump through a million hoops. First off, your printer has to support AirPrint. That’s Apple’s fancy way of saying, ‘We’ll only let you print stuff our way.’ Check your printer’s manual or look it up online to see if it even supports AirPrint. If it doesn’t, welp, you’ll need a third-party app like Printer Pro or your printer’s specific app.
Assuming your printer does have AirPrint, both your iPhone and your printer need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. No, not guessing the neighbor’s router name or some random Wi-Fi you find. Has to be the same one. Open the document, email, or photo you want to print, tap the share icon (that little box with an arrow pointing up), scroll down and hit “Print.” Your printer should pop up in the list, and if it doesn’t… fantastic, time to troubleshoot the network settings.
Still doesn’t work? Restart your phone and printer because all tech problems are fixed by turning things off and on again, right? And if none of this works? Sell the printer, write your memoir about never printing again, and live a paperless dream. Honestly, who still prints anything these days?
Honestly, I feel like printing from an iPhone is straight out of a dystopian novel where no one can quite figure out how to connect the dots. While @himmelsjager’s AirPrint breakdown is technically accurate, let me throw a wrench in there: you might not even need AirPrint if your wireless printer has its own app. Most printer manufacturers like HP, Epson, or Canon have dedicated apps that can bypass the AirPrint nonsense entirely. Just download the app, make sure your printer and phone are on the same Wi-Fi tribe, and print directly through the app.
If that’s still too much, you could use cloud printing services if your printer supports Google Cloud Print (though RIP, Google killed it in 2021). Another trick could be emailing the document to yourself and accessing it on a computer that’s connected to the printer, but really—do you even want to print this badly? Oh, and for the record, saying ‘Restart everything’ sounds like a tired relationship counseling cliché at this point. Sure, it might work temporarily, but let’s be honest, it’s not a long-term solution to iPhone-printer drama.