Mac Won't Print? Check the Print Queue and the Ink (Even the Colors)

When a Mac suddenly won't print, the printer is rarely broken. Two things cause most of these calls: an ink complaint the Mac isn't showing you, and a print queue that quietly paused itself. Both look identical from your chair — you hit Print and nothing happens.

The ink gotcha: even an empty color stops black printing

A lot of inkjet printers will refuse to print anything — even a plain black-and-white document — when any one cartridge is low or empty, including a color you weren't even using. The printer "complains," but on a Mac that complaint often doesn't pop up on screen; the job just silently doesn't come out.

So if your printer won't print, check whether a cartridge (any cartridge, including color) is low or out. Replacing the complaining one usually gets it going again. Some printers also have a "print in black/grayscale only" or "ignore empty color cartridge" setting worth checking.

The queue gotcha: macOS paused the printer

After an error — low ink, a paper jam, a brief Wi-Fi drop — macOS will sometimes pause the printer and stop accepting new jobs. From your side it just looks dead: you print, and nothing happens, or jobs pile up.

The fix is to open the print queue, where the Mac actually shows you what's wrong. Go to System Settings → Printers & Scanners, click your printer, then click "Printer Queue" (or "Open Print Queue"). There you'll see if it's paused, any error messages like low ink or a jam, and stuck jobs. Click "Resume" if it's paused, and delete any stuck jobs so fresh ones can go through.

If it still won't go

Confirm the printer is on and on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac. As a last resort you can reset the printing system (right-click in the Printers & Scanners list → "Reset printing system") and re-add the printer — but that clears all your printers, so it's a bigger step.

We set up and troubleshoot printers on Macs and PCs all the time — AirPrint, low-ink quirks, paused queues, and printers that "just stopped working." If yours is fighting you, we'll sort it out.