Hi, I sent a bunch of files to a work printer but left before they printed. how can I move those documents from the print que they are in to my home printer que please? the MacBook Air is using Sequoia 15.3 thanks Stephen
iMac 27″, macOS 12.7
Short answer: you can’t directly “move” a print job from one printer’s queue to another, especially once it’s already been sent to a work printer you’re no longer connected to. Print queues live either on the local Mac that sent the job or on the printer/server itself, and macOS doesn’t provide a way to redirect an existing job to a different printer. The good news is you can still potentially recover this pretty easily in most cases.
What you’ll want to do instead is resend the documents to your home printer. If the jobs were sent from your MacBook Air and it’s still on, open System Settings → Printers & Scanners, select the work printer, and check Print Queue. If the jobs are still listed there, open each document again from the original app and print to your home printer. If you no longer have the files open, check Recent Items in the app you used (Preview, Word, Pages, etc.) to quickly re-print them.
If the jobs were sent to a managed work printer (like a secure print), those jobs are stored on the work network and can’t be accessed from home for security reasons. In that case, your only option is to reprint the files from your Mac to your home printer. If you want to avoid this in the future, one handy trick is to save to PDF first, then print from the PDF wherever you are — that way you always have a ready-to-print copy no matter which printer you end up using.
Short answer: you can’t directly “move” a print job from one printer’s queue to another, especially once it’s already been sent to a work printer you’re no longer connected to. Print queues live either on the local Mac that sent the job or on the printer/server itself, and macOS doesn’t provide a way to redirect an existing job to a different printer. The good news is you can still potentially recover this pretty easily in most cases.
What you’ll want to do instead is resend the documents to your home printer. If the jobs were sent from your MacBook Air and it’s still on, open System Settings → Printers & Scanners, select the work printer, and check Print Queue. If the jobs are still listed there, open each document again from the original app and print to your home printer. If you no longer have the files open, check Recent Items in the app you used (Preview, Word, Pages, etc.) to quickly re-print them.
If the jobs were sent to a managed work printer (like a secure print), those jobs are stored on the work network and can’t be accessed from home for security reasons. In that case, your only option is to reprint the files from your Mac to your home printer. If you want to avoid this in the future, one handy trick is to save to PDF first, then print from the PDF wherever you are — that way you always have a ready-to-print copy no matter which printer you end up using.
Thank you
You're welcome!
Move print job from work to home printer?
