Save Print Presets on a Mac for Your Usual Settings

Windows has a printer preferences page where you set two-sided or black-and-white printing once for every document. On a Mac, the equivalent lives in the Print dialog. If you are tired of changing the same options every time, the answer is to save print presets on a Mac: named groups of settings you choose with one click. This guide shows how to create, use and tidy presets, with examples worth setting up on day one.

What a preset is

A preset is a saved set of print options. Apple’s guide describes two kinds:

• Print Job Preset. Replaces all job settings with the ones saved. Only one can be active at a time, and choosing one overrides any print job preset or custom presets chosen before it.
• Custom Preset. Changes only the settings saved in it and leaves the rest alone, so you can apply it on top of a print job preset. Apple’s example is a preset that changes a few settings to print envelopes.

For everyday use, a Print Job Preset is the closest thing to a “default” on a Mac: choose it and every setting is as you left it.

Step 1: set up the Print dialog

1. Open any document and choose File, Print.
2. If you see only a small dialog, click Show Details to see every option.
3. Choose the printer at the top. If it is not listed yet, see add a printer on a Mac.
4. Set what you want to save. Common choices are Two-Sided, black and white (sometimes under Color or a printer-specific section), Paper Size, paper type and print quality.

The options available depend on the printer. AirPrint printers show a standard set; a maker’s driver may add more.

Step 2: save the preset

Apple’s steps:

1. Click the Presets pop-up menu.
2. Choose Save Current Settings as Preset.
3. Enter a Preset Name, such as “Everyday duplex B/W”.
4. Under Available for, choose the printer’s name or All printers.
5. Choose the type, Print Job Preset or Custom Preset, and confirm.

Choose All printers for general habits like two-sided printing, so the preset follows you to any printer. Choose a specific printer for settings that only make sense there, such as photo paper in a photo printer’s rear tray.

Step 3: use it

Next time, open File, Print, choose your preset from the Presets menu and click Print. Some apps remember the last preset used, but not all do, so check the menu before printing important jobs.

Apple notes that if you do not see a preset you expect, you probably created it for a specific printer. Select that printer and it appears.

Presets worth creating

Preset name	Settings	Type
Draft duplex	Two-sided, black and white, draft or normal quality	Print Job Preset
Photo	Photo paper type, best quality, correct tray	Print Job Preset, for the photo printer only
Envelope	Envelope paper size and orientation	Custom Preset
Labels	Label paper size, no scaling	Custom Preset

Edit or delete presets

Open the Presets menu and choose Edit Preset List to view or delete presets. To change a preset’s settings, the simplest route is to choose it, adjust the options and save again under the same or a new name, then delete the old one.

Presets and printer changes

Presets are tied to the printers you choose when saving them, so a few events can make them disappear or stop applying:

• Reset Printing System deletes all printers and printer presets, as Apple warns. Note your presets before using it; our guide to removing a printer from a Mac covers when a reset is really needed.
• Removing and re-adding a printer can make printer-specific presets vanish from the menu. Recreate them, or save them for all printers.
• Switching between the AirPrint and maker’s driver for the same printer changes which options exist, so check presets after the change.

Defaults stored in the printer itself

Some settings can also be changed on the printer, which then applies to every computer and phone that prints to it. Many network printers let you set the default paper size, the tray and sometimes two-sided printing from the control panel or the printer’s built-in web page. Our guide to accessing a printer’s web interface shows how to open it. Settings sent with a job usually win over the printer’s defaults, so a Mac preset and a printer default can coexist: the preset decides for your Mac, the printer default decides for everything that does not say otherwise.

On a Mac you can also check what the printer reports by selecting it in Printers & Scanners and opening Options & Supplies, which shows installed options such as a duplex unit or extra trays. If two-sided printing is missing from the Print dialog, make sure the duplex option is ticked there.

Presets on a shared Mac

Presets are saved for your user account. If several people share a Mac with separate accounts, each person creates their own. That is useful when one person prints photos and another prints homework in black and white. If you share the printer itself from your Mac to other computers, their settings come from their own print dialogs; our guide to sharing a printer on a network explains the setup.

The default printer itself

Presets cover settings, not which printer is chosen. Apple’s guide explains the default printer setting: in System Settings, Printers & Scanners, use the Default printer pop-up menu to pick a printer, or choose Last Printer Used. Picking a fixed default stops jobs going to whichever printer you used last.

Other computers

On Windows, the same idea works through printer preferences rather than presets; see change default print settings in Windows 11. On Linux, CUPS options such as sides-default set defaults for a queue; see add a printer from the Linux command line. Whatever you change, print a test page or a short document to confirm the settings took effect.