Epson SC-800 printer defaults to AirPrint driver on OS 15.7

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Level 1

19 points

Epson SC-800 printer defaults to AirPrint driver on OS 15.7

I'm running OS 15.7 and have found that one of the recent updates has switched my Epson SC-800 printer to using the airprint driver. I've been following internet advice on fixing the problem by removing the printer, restarting the computer, downloading the latest Epson driver and installing it, then installing the printer. When adding the printer the only option to select says EPSON SC-800 Series, kind: USB. Once installed it says the driver is Airprint again. How do I get rid of Airprint?

iMac (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Jan 24, 2026 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 24, 2026 1:04 PM in response to ceanothus

Consider turning off - disabling - the printer's wi-fi features. No wi-fi, no AirPrint.

Epson SureColor P800 Printer User Guide - Epson

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Answer 2

ceanothus Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 24, 2026 2:34 PM in response to ceanothus

Problem solved, but I don't exactly understand what happened. I uninstalled and reinstalled repeatedly, re-installing the Epson driver and software repeatedly and restarting the computer each time. It finally worked after I gave up on the latest Epson driver and started trying to re-install ones I had downloaded from Epson over the last few years. I think it was a 2022 driver that finally worked.

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Answer 3

Jan 24, 2026 1:48 PM in response to ceanothus

ceanothus wrote:

[...] Is there any way to delete this AirPrint driver from my OS so it can't keep installing it?

No, there is no way to directly disable the macOS AirPrint feature on the Mac.

Your printer is rather old, and Epson had supplied print drivers for specific OSs, including up to macOS Tahoe, and according to their support website the latest version is Printer Driver v13.26.

https://epson.com/Support/Printers/Professional-Imaging-Printers/SureColor-Series/Epson-SureColor-P800/s/SPT_SCP800SE?review-filter=macOS+15.x+%28Sequoia%29

Once upon a time I knew of third-party alternative printer drivers. Maybe another of our friends here in the Community will have suggestions for that.

Meanwhile, may I ask why you wish not to rely on the AirPrint features of the OS and your Epson printer?

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Answer 4

ceanothus Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 24, 2026 6:16 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

AirPrint is no doubt very convenient if one is not particular about colors, but in my experience it is truly terrible if one is trying to print fine art photographs true to the colors seen on a carefully calibrated monitor. I have lots of different profiles for different papers and different kinds of images, and I have no real difficulty getting what I want using Photoshop and the settings within the Epson driver (I've been doing prints this way for many years) but the AirPrint method appears to ignore all the profiles and print everything with a strong magenta bias.

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Answer 5

MartinR

Level 7

24,498 points

Jan 25, 2026 7:20 AM in response to ceanothus

ceanothus wrote:

AirPrint is no doubt very convenient if one is not particular about colors, but in my experience it is truly terrible if one is trying to print fine art photographs true to the colors seen on a carefully calibrated monitor.

+1. Complete agreement here.

Airprint is fine if you are just doing everyday printing and are not especially concerned about printing quality images. And it's not just that colors are the issue ... Airprint does not support many printer controls that the official printer drivers do, at least not with Epson printers.

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Answer 6

ceanothus Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 24, 2026 1:35 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

That is a very logical solution. Unfortunately it doesn't work for me. I have wifi completely disabled on my printer. I once again deleted the printer, I restarted the mac and I reinstalled the printer while carefully selecting USB connection. Once installed I checked which driver it was using and once again it says "EPSON SC-P800 Series -AirPrint". Is there any way to delete this AirPrint driver from my OS so it can't keep installing it?

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