How to Print From Your Phone (and When to Give Up)

I should warn you up front that this article is more honest than most. Printing from a phone in 2026 mostly works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, the reason is usually the printer rather than the phone, and the fix involves walking across the room and pressing a button on the printer that the manufacturer should have made easier to find. Welcome to home computing.

What follows is the path that has worked at my house and at the houses of the dozen-plus class regulars I've helped with this. The short version: if your printer is from 2018 or later and it's connected to your home Wi-Fi, you can almost certainly print from your phone.

iPhone (AirPrint)

Apple's printing system is called AirPrint. Almost every wireless printer made since 2014 supports it. To print:

Open whatever you want to print — a webpage, a photo, an email. Tap the share icon (the small square with the arrow pointing up out of it). Scroll the share menu until you see "Print." Tap it.

The printer should appear automatically. If yours doesn't, the most common reason is that the phone and the printer are on different Wi-Fi networks. Modern home Wi-Fi often has both a "2.4 gigahertz" and a "5 gigahertz" network — they may have the same name but the printer can only see the 2.4. Make sure your phone is connected to the same one the printer uses.

Once it appears, tap it. Choose how many copies. Pick black-and-white or color. Tap Print.

That's the easy day.

Android (Mopria)

Android's equivalent is called Mopria Print Service. Most Android phones have it installed already, but some don't. If your phone doesn't, install the free "Mopria Print Service" app from the Play Store. After installing, go to Settings → Connected devices → Connection preferences → Printing and turn it on.

Then the process is the same as iPhone: open the document, tap the share icon, tap Print, choose the printer, tap Print.

Some printer manufacturers (HP, Canon, Brother, Epson) also offer their own apps. They generally work but add an extra step. The HP Smart app is the most polished of them. Use the manufacturer's app if Mopria can't find your printer.

The wireless setup nightmare

Here is the honest part. The single hardest thing about printing from a phone is getting the printer onto your Wi-Fi in the first place. Printer manufacturers have all designed their setup to be friendly to the average user and not to the actual reality of the average user's living room.

My approach when I encounter a printer that won't connect:

One. Turn the printer off, wait twenty seconds, turn it back on. About 30 percent of mystery printer issues resolve themselves at this step.

Two. Make sure the printer is within twenty feet of the router and there are no walls between them. Wi-Fi from a basement to a printer in the attic is a coin flip. Move them closer for setup, then move the printer back if needed.

Three. Use the printer's small touchscreen (or its buttons, on older models) to navigate to Settings → Wireless or Network Setup. Pick your home network from the list. Enter the password — carefully, with capital letters and special characters as they actually appear, not as you usually type them.

Four. If the printer still won't connect, the next thing to try is the manufacturer's setup app on your phone. HP's HP Smart app, for example, can sometimes bridge the gap by using the phone as an intermediary. Download the app, open it, follow the prompts.

Five. If after all of that the printer still won't connect, call the manufacturer's support line. Don't pay for "premium" tech support from a third party — the official numbers are free and the wait isn't bad on a weekday morning. HP, Canon, Brother, and Epson all have functional support.

When to give up

If a printer is older than 2017 or so, or if it doesn't have a touchscreen, or if you're spending more than an hour wrestling with setup, the honest advice is to either replace the printer (a decent home inkjet from HP or Brother is under $150 in 2026 and works straight out of the box) or accept that you don't actually need to print things from home.

Most public libraries will print documents you email to them — five cents per page, no setup required. Office supply stores (Staples, FedEx Office) accept print jobs through their websites or apps; you walk in and pick up the paper. The library is faster and cheaper, but the office supply stores are open on Sundays.

I helped a woman last year who had spent four days trying to print a Christmas letter from her phone to a 2012 printer her late husband had set up. We tried everything. Nothing worked. We emailed the letter to her local library; she walked over the next morning and picked up forty copies for two dollars. She has not tried to print at home since. She seems happier.

The one trick worth knowing

"Print to PDF" is on both iPhone and Android. When you tap Print and you see your printer listed, you'll also see an option called "Save to Files" (iPhone) or "Save as PDF" (Android). This turns whatever was on your screen into a PDF document saved on the phone. You can then email the PDF to yourself, to a family member, to your accountant, or to the library to print for you.

I print very little at home. I save a lot of PDFs. It is not the same activity but it serves the same purpose: capturing a piece of information so it doesn't disappear when the webpage changes. For tax documents, receipts, and confirmation emails from medical appointments, the PDF in your phone is more useful than the paper in a drawer.

Especially if, like me, you can never find the drawer.

Written by Robert Sandoval. Last verified 19 June 2026.