How to Fix a Printer Showing Offline on Windows 10 and 11

Your printer is showing “Offline” in Windows even though it’s powered on and connected. The fix is usually one of eight things, and the first one takes about 30 seconds.

Fix #1: Power cycle the printer and PC

Stale connections are the most common cause, and a full power cycle clears them faster than any settings change.

1. Turn the printer completely off (full power-down). If the power button doesn’t fully shut it down, unplug it from the wall.
2. Wait 30 seconds, then power it back on.
3. Let it finish its startup sequence and reconnect to the network or USB port.
4. Restart your PC as well.
5. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners (Windows 11) or Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners (Windows 10) and check whether the printer now shows as Online.

Still offline? Keep going.

Fix #2: Uncheck “Use Printer Offline”

Windows has an option to manually force a printer into offline mode. It’s easy to enable by accident, and it blocks every print job until you turn it off.

1. On Windows 11: Go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, select your printer, and click Open print queue.

On Windows 10: Go to Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners, select your printer, and click Open queue.

2. In the queue window, click Printer in the menu bar.
3. If Use Printer Offline has a checkmark next to it, click it to remove the checkmark.
4. Uncheck Pause Printing as well if that’s ticked.
5. If there are stuck jobs in the queue, click Printer > Cancel All Documents to clear them out.

This alone resolves the problem in a large portion of cases.

Fix #3: Run the printer troubleshooter

The built-in printer troubleshooter checks the spooler, driver state, and network configuration automatically. It catches a surprising number of issues without any manual digging.

On Windows 11:

1. Go to Settings > System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters.
2. Find Printer in the list and click Run.
3. Follow the prompts and apply any fixes it suggests.

You can also open the Get Help app, search for “fix printer,” and run the guided troubleshooter from there for additional automated checks.

On Windows 10:

1. Go to Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot > Additional troubleshooters.
2. Select Printer and click Run the troubleshooter.

Fix #4: Restart the Print Spooler service

The Print Spooler manages every print job Windows queues up. If it’s crashed or hung, which happens when a corrupted job gets stuck, your printer will show Offline even when everything else is working fine.

1. Press Windows + R, type services.msc, and press Enter.
2. Scroll down to Print Spooler.
3. Right-click Print Spooler and select Restart.
4. Right-click it again, choose Properties, and confirm the Startup type is set to Automatic. Change it if it isn’t, then click OK.
5. Try printing again.

Fix #5: Turn off “Let Windows manage my default printer”

Windows 10 and 11 can silently switch your default printer based on your current network location. If Windows swaps over to Microsoft Print to PDF, OneNote, or another virtual printer, jobs go to the wrong device, and your real printer looks offline.

1. On Windows 11: Go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners. Scroll to the bottom and turn off the Let Windows manage my default printer toggle.

On Windows 10: Go to Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners and uncheck Let Windows manage my default printer.

2. Select your actual printer and click Set as default.

Fix #6: Check and update the printer port (network printers)

When your router reassigns your printer’s IP address via DHCP, the port Windows uses still points to the old address. Windows can’t reach the printer and shows it as Offline.

Find your printer’s current IP address first. Most printers can print a network configuration page, check your printer’s manual for the button or menu path. You can also log into your wireless router’s admin page (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and look at the list of connected devices.

Once you have the IP:

On Windows 11:

1. Go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners and click More device and printer settings at the bottom.
2. In the Devices and Printers window, right-click your printer and choose Printer properties (the plain Properties at the bottom of the menu is a different dialog; you want Printer properties).
3. Click the Ports tab. Find the checked port and click Configure Port.
4. Check whether the Printer Name or IP Address field matches your printer’s current IP. If it doesn’t, update it and click OK.

On Windows 10:

1. Open Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers.
2. Right-click your printer and choose Printer properties.
3. Follow steps 3–4 above.

If you get the error “An error occurred during port configuration. This operation is not supported,” the printer is using a WSD port, which can’t be edited. Click Add Port, choose Standard TCP/IP Port, and enter your printer’s current IP address instead.

While you’re in Configure Port, consider unchecking SNMP Status Enabled. This setting queries the printer for status via SNMP, and if the printer doesn’t respond to those queries, Windows marks it offline, even when it’s perfectly reachable.

To stop the IP mismatch from recurring, assign a static IP address to your printer through its own settings menu or embedded web interface. The exact steps vary by model; check your printer’s documentation.

Fix #7: Remove and re-add the printer

Removing and reinstalling forces Windows to rediscover the printer and rebuild its configuration from scratch. Any stale settings that survived the previous fixes won’t survive this.

1. On Windows 11: Go to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, select your printer, and click Remove.

On Windows 10: Go to Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners, select your printer, and click Remove device.

2. Restart your PC.
3. Return to Printers & scanners and click Add device (Windows 11) or Add a printer or scanner (Windows 10).
4. Windows will scan for the printer. If it doesn’t appear after a minute, confirm the printer is on and connected to the same network as your PC, then click Refresh.

Fix #8: Update or reinstall the printer driver

Generic Windows drivers handle basic printing, but they can misbehave after a Windows feature update. A vendor-supplied driver is tested specifically for your printer model and usually sorts the problem permanently.

1. Go to your printer manufacturer’s support website and search for your model number.
2. Download the latest driver package for Windows 10 or Windows 11, confirm it matches your exact OS version before downloading.
3. Before installing, open Device Manager: press Windows + X and select Device Manager.
4. Expand Print queues, right-click your printer, and choose Uninstall device. If prompted, check the box to remove the driver software as well.
5. Restart your PC.
6. Run the driver installer you downloaded in step 2 and follow the prompts.

For HP printers, HP Print and Scan Doctor automates the diagnosis and driver reinstall, search for it on HP’s support site. Canon users can grab the latest driver from Canon’s support site. For any other brand, find your model on the manufacturer’s support page and download the Windows 10/11 driver directly. It almost always outperforms whatever Windows installed on its own.

When nothing works

If all eight fixes have failed, the issue is likely hardware or network infrastructure rather than a Windows setting. Plug the printer directly into your PC with a USB cable and test. If it prints over USB but not over Wi-Fi, the problem is your wireless router or the printer’s wireless radio. Try switching to a wired Ethernet connection for long-term reliability. If the printer won’t print over USB either, contact the manufacturer’s support line; the printer itself may need service.

Conclusion

Fix #2 and Fix #4 together clear up the offline status in under a minute for most cases. Worth bookmarking this page before a Windows update reshuffles your setup again. If the printer keeps dropping offline every few days, a changing IP address is almost always the reason; assign a static IP through the printer’s own menu, update the Windows port once, and it stays online. Persistent offline issues that appeared right after a Windows update point to a driver conflict. Fix #8 handles that permanently.