Restore Deleted Printers

The steps in my earlier posting Restore Deleted Printers do NOT rely on any time machine backups. The cups system keeps a copy of your previous list of printers in the printers.conf.O file in /etc/cups folder. So I would think you have nothing to loose by trying the steps in earlier posting (copied here again):

Utilities -> Terminal. In the terminal paste in, one at a time, each of the one-line commands in bold below.

Stop the CUPS daemon with the following command:

sudo launchctl stop org.cups.cupsd

NOTE: Just type your password blindly when asked (no * echo), and hit enter key. You must logged into account with admin privs.

Assuming printers.conf.O is bigger (1st line), ovewrite the empty printers.conf with it (2nd line):

ls -l /etc/cups/printers.conf.O /etc/cups/printers.conf

sudo cp -p /etc/cups/printers.conf.O /etc/cups/printers.conf

Optionally (I did not need to do this myself) restore cupsd.conf from the O (older) one:

sudo cp -p /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.O /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

Restart the stopped CUPS daemon with the following command:

sudo launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

That's all folks. Should work with almost any mac-os-x version 10.10, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6, even 10.5, 10.4...

Thanks for your reply, problem is solved :-)

I don't know if anyone's still looking at this thread but things on my mac have gone from bad to worse with the printer.

I had a complete destruction of my data when the power blinked on and off again a couple of times yesterday. I am on an iMac from 2011 but it had been upgraded to Yosemite.

I did the safe boot, tried a disk repair but that revealed that I needed to erase the hard drive and start over.

Luckily I had everything backed up on Time Machine.

I have tried everything mentioned in this thread to solve my printer problem after trying everything apple says to solve the problem. I have another computer than can print to the same printer just fine, everything's connected through my wireless modem/router.

I have unhidden all the folders and tried to restore the backed up CUPS files, but a dialogue pops up that asks where to put them, and the hidden folders are not shown there.

I tried the second set of instructions another person suggested which was the sudo commands in the terminal, that didn't work either.

At first I was getting error/inkjet 3 driver errors. Whatever I've done got rid of that but now it's just stuck in eternal pause.

Is there another way to open up the files in Time Machine? I am unable to copy them or move them the only option seems to be restore but as I mentioned that doesn't allow me to move anything to hidden folders.

My last hope before calling in a repair person.

For anyone not very techie, I too lost my printers the same way others misunderstood the deleting of the print queue. I was too scared to play around so phoned Kodak. They took control and I was up and running in no time at all. Great for you guys who know what you are doing but for a senior newby to Mac this was good for me.

I know this is nearly one year after the last post but Paul from LA solution helped me.

First I tried the Gutenprint driver but this didn't support duplex printing which I use a lot.

I had to replace the hard drive after a failure and canon IP4200 printer was original added with Snow Leopard, after all the various OS X updates the printer still worked. However after doing a restore from a time machine back up the printer wouldn't work. I followed the reset printers advice (d'oh).

I tried the instructions and after restart it didn't work so I just copied the back up contents of the CUPS folder from time machine to the CUPS folder on the HD along with coping the printer apps from the HD>Users>UserName>Library>Printer folder in time machine to the mac HD.

Double clicked the printer utility and test printed ok, tried a word document as duplex print and woo hoo it all worked.

many thanks

Paul in LA -

Thank you SO Much!

This worked for me, and I am back in business! I work remotely, so it would've been difficult to rebuild all of my printers. I am transferring postscript files to print at the main office right now! Sure appreciate the help.

Mike in Central Oregon

iMac OSX El Capitan (10.11.3)

Paul you are a star! I can't believe its over 5 years later and apple still haven't fixed this horrific bug! Lost all printers now back to what I was. Amazing and easy 🙂

Can you forgive me this time | I'll never do something wrong ag

Worked for Me, Thanks