I told the story of being unable to use Epson’s driver with my existing printer here. I don’t want to waste my time with Epson support, nor do any of the workarounds recommended in that thread. I’m looking for a new printer/scanner. My print load is very light, less than 10 pages a week. I need color but not photo quality.
Looking at units under about $200 yields lots of choices with at best mixed reviews. I purchased a Brother unit that was recommended in several places, but before I opened the box, I saw the fine print that said there was no MacOS driver, just use AirPrint. I consider this unsatisfactory, and I returned it. Knowing that it can (and often does) take 15 minutes for a single photo on my iPhone to transfer to my Mac via iCloud Photos, I don’t want to wait that long to print a document. I looked at a Canon unit and same problem, no MacOS driver.
I have VueScan that will take care of the scanner. Great software.
I’d appreciate thoughts and suggestions for finding a reliable, decent-quality unit that actually connects to the Mac for printing.
I’m a little confused here. Did that printer have a USB port so you could plug it into your Mac? I just looked at all the materials on the Brother site for the MFC-J1010Dw, a multifunction inkjet computer that is currently selling for about $80US. It appears that it offers wireless and plugin USB connections, which is pretty much what all of Brother’s printers offer.
On Apple’s support site they include this printer on a very long list of Brother printers that support AirPrint, AND it would be included as a supported printer in the general MaOS Brother Printer Driver v4.1.1. It’s already in your computer. When you plug it into USB and go to the Printer preference you click the + button to add that printer.
I chose that printer as an example, but I’d truly be shocked to learn that Brother would market a printer that does not support a Mac on USB. I can see it if the little app they have is just for Windows somehow and so “You should use AirPrint,” but it doesn’t make any sense to me that they would do that for a USB printer.
In general Brother has been very reliable for my printing needs over the past 20 years and several machines. I have one side by side with a large Epson Workforce inkjet printer right now, and the Brother is the far more reliable of the two.
Printing through AirPrint is a wifi process which is what most users probably use as you can have multiple computers in a house and the printer is not always near all of them so that should not be a problem. Transferring photos from iCloud is irrelevant to your printing issue since that is based on your internet connection and the iCloud servers.
Apple lists numerous AirPrint models here so it is a standard more or less:
If you worry about AirPrint not working for printers connected via USB, that is false for many. For example, here is how Canon discusses System and Network requirements for connection to a Mac:
System Requirements
To print with AirPrint, you need one of the following Apple devices.
iPad (all models)
iPhone (3GS or later)
iPod touch (3rd generation or later)
Mac (Mac OS X 10.7 or later)*
Mac OS X 10.9 or later when you use USB connection.
Network Environment
You need one of the following environments.
The Apple device and the machine are connected to the same LAN.
The Apple device and the machine are in Direct Connection.
The Mac and the machine are connected via USB.
When using USB connection
Set ‘Select OS for USB Connected PC’ to ‘Mac OS’ .
:
Thanks to all of you who replied. I did not understand how Airprint works, and it sounds like it would be satisfactory, but I’m still leery of totally relying on a wireless solution.
I’m still confused about a driver. I went to the Brother downloads page for the model I rejected. There is a “Full Software Package” with the description “We recommend this download to get the most functionality out of your Brother machine.” There is no indication of what this package contains. Then there’s a section headed Drivers. The only entry is a recommendation to use AirPrint.
@Matt_McCaffrey Apple’s support page for Brother Printer Driver 4.1.1 says “Not compatible with macOS v12 and newer.” A search of Apple’s support site for “Brother printer driver” does not show anything newer than 4.1.1.
Apple’s generic support page for installing printers says “update your software” - what software? the printer driver? MacOS? - and then connect your printer by USB. Then it says “Check with your printer’s manufacturer to see if any updates are available.” Well, Brother does not have a driver, so there can’t be an update available.
I guess I will buy a printer, unpack it and see what happens. I’ll make sure it is returnable.
The industry seems to be moving toward AirPrint and/or IPP Everywhere printing.
I don’t miss drivers and the constant care and feeding to make sure they’re up-to-date and compatible with my system. Having the printers on my home network also means I don’t have to open up printer sharing on one system for a USB connected printer so that anything else on the network can print to them.
I’ve got 2 Epson multi-function inkjet printers and 1 Brother monochrome laser printer, all configured via AirPrint. They work fine with no noticeable lack of functionality for both printing and scanning. (One Epson even has fax capability, and that works fine as well).
Windows 11 (yes, even Windows), Linux, macOS and iOS all work fine with them.
Your mileage certainly may vary based on use cases, but it would be interesting to know what features proprietary drivers provide that driverless printing does not.
Personally, I’d keep life simple. If your printer says it supports AirPrint, don’t waste your time to hunt down and install vendor proprietary crap-ware drivers or software. Just connect the new printer to your Wi-Fi network. Then go back to your Mac and open System Settings > Printers & Scanners. Click on “add a new printer” and you should see the AirPrint capable printer(s) on your network. Select the printer, and click “Add”. Print, scan, and fax (if available) will all be configured.
Done. Quick and easy.
AFAIK Apple has deprecated “their” device-specific drivers you found in older macOS releases (IIRC they were provided by the printer vendors). As you’ve found out, vendors aren’t updating installable driver packages for Apple devices any more. Both Apple and the printer vendors seem to be on the AirPrint/IPP Everywhere bandwagon.
Hewlett Packard has a Mac app for setting up its printers but, as @Technogeezer suggests, I would use the built in Airprint system once the printer is connected to your home wifi. The HP software is very intrusive and unhelpful.
Totally fine imho to stick with USB as long as it’s available. As others note, many manufacturers are moving to wifi so maybe a good time to snap up a USB capable printer while they are still available.
It’s been a while since I purchased one, but iirc it was as simple as @Matt_McCaffrey wrote, going into Printer Settings and + the printer. Sometimes that leads to a download of driver, sometimes not. That was years ago though.
I looked briefly at the brochure for the EU version of the Brother J1010 and it makes it sound like printing from phone or tablet requires an App from Brother, haven’t found the instruction manual for it yet to find out if thats the case or if you can just use the Print command, but your question is about using it with a Mac so that might be irrelevant for you.
Am looking forward to other comments as we are considering a new printer ourselves.
I have a Brother mono laser printer here - HL-2375DW. It was cheap as chips and has been very reliable. Print quality for basic needs is fine. Everyone in the family uses it and it’s all wireless - no USB in use (although it has a USB port).
Note on WiFi connection (ignore if you’re using USB):
If the printer you get can handle a wired Ethernet connection and is close enough to a router or Ethernet switch, using that is preferable to WiFi as you don’t need to enter a WIFI password on the printer or enable WPS to connect the printer.
I went to help a friend who had bought a new MacBook Air last week - she was a bit nervous about setting it up.
She already had a printer, A Canon multifunction she had bought less than a year ago.
After we were satisfied that everything was installed on the mac we did a test print. No Software installed or anything.
Print command saw the printer and instantly printed. Similarly, Image Capture saw the scanner and scanned as expected.
I don’t think there’s anything to worry about using AirPrint anymore.
AirPrint does not route your print jobs through a cloud server. It is a direct-to-device print operation using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet network (or both, if your router bridges them together) to which both your source (phone, Mac, etc) and printer are connected.
The devices involved use Bonjour for discovery and then a direct TCP/IP connection for moving the data (usually PostScript data, I believe). Although it doesn’t have support for features beyond generic drivers, Apple’s generic drivers are pretty robust these days. I use it to print from my iPhone all the time and have been happy with the result.
FWIW, I’m using a Brother HL-L3270CDW. This is a low-cost LED-toner-fuser printer featuring color, a duplexer and networking. I have disabled its Wi-Fi interface, connecting it to my LAN via Ethernet. It appears as an AirPrint device to everything on my LAN, both wired and wireless.
My Mac does have Brother drivers (version 4.0.5), but I installed them many years ago (when I was running macOS 10.15). They have not (yet?) been disabled by macOS updates and they seem to continue working for printing from that Mac. But when I print from my mobile devices, that’s all over AirPrint (phone talking Wi-Fi on my LAN, with the router bridging the packets to the Ethernet LAN to the printer), and it works fine.
I don’t know if I would be able to install those drivers today, since they’re not supported by anybody.
It’s a more generic network protocol based on TCP and UDP. It should run over your LAN, whether that LAN is based on Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or some hybrid of the two.
If you’ve got a big network with multiple IP subnets, then Bonjour discovery won’t cross the subnet borders, so auto-discovery won’t work, but Mac can still accept manual configuration (e.g. to a DNS name or IP address), using AirPrint for the data portion of the printing. (I don’t know if you can configure a mobile device for this.)
If your printer has an Ethernet interface, AirPrint works just fine over that as well.
And if the printer does not have Ethernet, I think AirPrint drivers work over a USB connection (should be something resembling PostScript). The Mac it’s connected to can enable printer sharing, which will expose it to the rest of your LAN, if you think that would be preferable to the printer’s own Wi-Fi interface.
In addition to drivers (which it may not include if it’s “AirPrint only”), the “Full Software Package” adds a few other utilities that you may not require if you just want to print. What I got with mine is:
BRAdminLight. This is a Java-based administrative tool which can help with the initial setup of a network-connected printer.
I think it can be used for subsequent management as well, but once the printer has an IP address, you can just point a web browser at it and log in that way to configure it, which is what I usually do.
But you may not need it at all. When my printer was new, I just used its front-panel buttons to print a configuration page to get its initial IP address, then configured everything via the web interface. The front-panel buttons should also be usable to perform Wi-Fi configuration, but the BRAdmin utility may be easier to work with.
Firmware Update Tool. This is to simplify the firmware-upgrade process.
You can let the printer upgrade its own firmware via the web management interface, if the printer is configured as a device on your LAN. I think this tool might be needed if your printer is only USB-connected or if it is blocked from the Internet by configuration or a firewall (it needs to connect to a Brother server to get the firmware images).
Brother Web Connect to permit scanning to web/cloud destinations or printing from the Internet. I have never installed this because I have no use for it.
If your printer is going to be LAN-connected, you don’t strictly need the contents of the full package, although you might find them more convenient than doing the setup/management without them. If you’re going to be USB-connected, you might want the BRAdmin and Firmware Update tools.
FWIW, I’m running the Brother drivers, version 4.0.5 on my 2018 (Intel) Mac mini running macOS 14.6.1. But I installed those drivers when I was running macOS 10.15, and they just kept working.
I don’t know if I would be able to run the 4.1.1 installer today. I haven’t tried it, and I don’t want to try, in case it breaks my existing installation.
Yes, they mean update macOS. This is to ensure that the bundled drivers (including the generic ones that AirPrint uses) will be up to date, which might be necessary to take advantage of all the printer’s features.
I’ve just been doing research to replace a failing HP all in one inkjet (which I’ve been using wirelessly for a decade at least.)
Check out the wire cutter printer reviews: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-all-in-one-printer/
"The HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e is easier to set up than any other inkjet we’ve tested. With its high-yield cartridges, it quickly prints crisp text documents and glossy photos at an affordable cost of 3.2¢ per page in black or 12.8¢ per page in color. “ It’s currently around $190.
Or the Consumer Reports review of inkjets, very exhaustive, but you probably need to be a subscriber to look at their test results.
In the end I chose an Epson EcoTank ET2850 ET2850B as having the right balance of functionality, ink cost, and price for my needs.
My ancient HP printer (LaserJet 1320nw) does not support Airprint but any new printer I might get (Brothers? Color Laser?) probably would. I like to have my printers on Ethernet so good to know that Airprint works over Ethernet.
A +1 here for the Epson EcoTank printers. I have an ET-3750. You can go a long time without having to fill the ink tanks (YMMV). The bottles of Epson ink are cheaper and contain a ton more ink than found in even the high capacity cartridges.
I’ll never go back to an inkjet printer that needs cartridges, even the “high yield” ones. Cartridges are a waste both ecologically and economically.
I would avoid HP printers like the plague. I had a fleet of HP printers back in the aughties and they had serious networking issues. HP support was worthless. When I posted a description of the problems to the HP Support forums I got a chorus of “me, too!” comments – then admins deleted the threads with no explanation.
HP has subsequently implemented a number of anti-consumer “features” in their printers:
I have Brother’s cheap laser colour MFC (HL-L3300CDW) and while it involved a strange process to install (download an installer, which then downloads an app (Brother iPrint&Scan.app)), it does work. It is connected via USB to a server, which shares it. This is quick and reliable for printing, but does not allow scanning by other machines. That has to be accessed through the Brother app. So I also have it connected to my wi-fi LAN, and I can scan directly from other Macs. I can print that way too, but it is slower. The other issue with the wi-fi connection is that after any power cut—rather frequent here—it does not automatically reconnect to the wi-fi, and it lacks a keyboard to enter the password and it’s a laborious process of cycling through characters and selecting the one you want. If you make a mistake, you have to start again from the beginning; there is no way to go back and replace a mistake.
One unexpected bonus of doing the install is that my older Brother monochrome laser printer (MFC-7860DW) has gained the ability to print double-sided, which it never could before! I’m keeping the older one around until it runs out of toner, and because it does have a document feeder for multi-page scans, which the colour printer lacks.
It looks like Brother tricked you into downloading all of their crapware software (especially that Print & Scan software which I’ve tried and find it makes my workflow harder rather than easier. Plus it’s just one more thing to keep updated).
After reviewing the documentation for that printer, I would have chosen the manual wireless setup procedure. No additional software required. Since the printer supports AirPrint that’s all you should have had to do.
The Brother monochrome laser printer I have (HL-L5200DW) has no issue reconnecting to the network after a power interruption. Perhaps a conversation with Brother’s tech support might be in order.