Printtool frequently asking to modify printer settings: approx. every three weeks. Is this legit?

Is Printtool a third party application or an OS X process? I've never seen a prompt with its name mentioned so I would have to assume its not part of OS X.

If there is some other method of making your printer work, you should try & use it.

Issues in several versions of OS X were caused by printtool in Mac... from 10.7. on.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=printtool%20mac

"Printtool is a component of the PrintCore framework, which is a system library that is responsible

for managing printing interfaces (faxes, printers, etc.). Within this framework is a small tool called

printtool, which is a background process that checks your specified printer to determine if it is avail-

able, if it is ready to print, or has errors such as low supply levels, and then quits.."

--from CNet article from the 10.7.5 days. Presumably a later version has some relief, in settings, etc.

The link to search results above mentions a later incident where someone was able to fix an issue.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

edited

I had a problem very similar to this. Ever since upgrading to El Capitan I've gotten this message whenever I try to print. Asks to modify printtool settings and requires me to login as an admin. Very annoying.

After googling and reading what I could, I thought about the problem as it related to a similar issue I had with Office 2016 for Mac.

I removed all of my printers from System Preferences/Printers & Scanners. Logged out and back in again. Reinstalled my printers. No more printtool problems.

Seems that some settings from Yosemite don't reset themselves when you upgrade to El Cap. I'm thinking since Apple did away with repairing permissions in El Cap, some things will need to be encouraged to comply. In this case, printer settings.

UPDATE

The above post was when I was using Word. This morning the same problem occurred in Excel. I found this solution OS X El Capitan: Reset the printing system, which is close to what I did above, except this resets the printing system for your system. Everything works now. = )

Hello merry3,

resetting printing system takes no effect on my mac. After updating to El Capitan the message that "print tool will modify printer settings" will also

appear if I will save something as *.pdf file. Do you have the same? What's about your settings in the printer section. Is the padlock open or close in your settings? Many thanks for reply...

I'm not having problems anymore. Saving as a PDF file in both when I go to print and using "Save As..." from Word and Excel works without issue. In "System Preferences.../Printers & Scanners" my settings are locked. I also using a non-admin account for everyday use.

I'm sorry the solution that worked for me, isn't working for you. Anybody else have any ideas?

Hi merry3,

have you done a clean install of MAC OS El Capitan or did you install it over an existing Yosemite version? Could this be the reason?

And I do not know what exactly print tool want to modify when I want to save a *pdf file? When I try to convert a text from a homepage

(not using Office) into a pdf file the message will appear. There must be a program or a setting because I am wondering that only a few people

have this problem (or they just cancel the message)...

I had this after upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan. You can cancel the prompt, but it will come back each time the printer status is updated (e.g. choosing a new printer) or polled. Microsoft Word polls printers and their status very frequently, so you probably get prompted every time it auto-saves.

Solved following the advice in these replies: I removed the printer from the list of printers in the System Settings Printers, and then added it back again.

In case of serious trouble, follow the Apple recommended article OS X El Capitan: Reset the printing system

I did an overwrite install this time with El Capitan over Yosemite after performing clean installs in the past.

I made a big mistake because the clean install forces you to create new printer drivers.

The old print drivers from Yosemite linger around and this error message shows up.

The suggestion to delete all the print drivers under the printer & scanners icon in the System preferences is probably a good one.

I have had other problems that I contribute to not performing a clean install.

It takes quite a bit more time and effort to do a clean install initially but I think it provides a better user experience thereafter.

I got lazy this go round and probably should not have.

The lack of the capability with El Capitan to do clean up the file permissions is a big mistake with the new disk utility.

I have seen updates to file permissions curing many ills of past files after doing an upgrade.

I have yet to see if I can bring back the old disk utility from a backup and use it though.

I believe this will solve your problem:

I didn’t want to reset my print system, I have wired IP printing, wireless, USB, for printers at multiple locations - what a hassle to gather the info from the printer owners and reset all of those up. LUCKILY, there is an easy solution! Just add the user, yourself or whoever have the problem when logged in, to the Print Administrators group using Directory Utility or a Terminal command:

Directory Utility is located in System/Library/CoreServices/Applications, but a few keystrokes in Spotlight is the quickest way to find and open the app.

Click the lock to make changes, then select Directory Editor, then select Groups from the Viewing popup menu. Type “print” (without the quotes) in the search field to quickly access Print Administrators. Select Print Administrators, then GroupMembership. Click the VERY SUBTLE “+” at the right side of the GroupMembership line, then type the name of the user, as example, Kathy, overwriting “new_value” which is already selected, just waiting on you to type. Save and quit Directory Utility. I’m not sure if it takes effect immediately or if you need to log the user out and back in.

Or adding someone to the Print Administrator group is easy (with admin privileges) from the Terminal by copy/pasting or typing this command, replacing “kathy”, in this example, with the actual account name :

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a kathy -t user _lpadmin

**Keep in mind** Terminal does NOT show your password on the screen as you type it in, so as you type it, it *looks* like Terminal is not taking your keystrokes. It is.