How To: Mac X Show Print History Reprint
You can lookup the print jobs of your Mac X machine and determine to re-print them if necessary. Using CUPS (open source printing system), you can track and re-print old print jobs in Mac X. Let’s get started.
1. First, we need to enable the cups backend browser GUI. Open Mac X Terminal
2. Type cupsctl WebInterface=yes and hit return
1. First, we need to enable the cups backend browser GUI. Open Mac X Terminal
2. Type cupsctl WebInterface=yes and hit return
3. Open Safari. Type the following URL into Safari: http://localhost:631 You will be presented with the page similar below.
5. Here you will see a list of all completed jobs since your Mac OS was born. Notice the Control column here. This is where you would see a re-print option. Chances are you aren’t seeing this. By default, re-print isn’t enabled with CUPS and we will need to manually enable this.
6. Go back to Terminal and type the following command: sudo cupsctl PreserveJobFiles=Yes Hit enter and you will be prompted for your user account password.
7. Now, print a new job. You can print anything. You will now see the lovely Reprint Job button in the Control column. Yay!
You can set the amount of Reprint jobs the CUPS queue will remember. Do so in Terminal by specifying a value.
Type sudo cupsctl MaxJobs=100 (sets memory of jobs to be 100)
Enjoy!
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Comments 16
Thank you so much I got my document back you are the best
How do I reprint something from December 2019? I only have the option to reprint from yesterday
You will only see re-print for print jobs AFTER you have enabled this! If CUPS was not previously enabled before you printed a job, you won't see this option. If after you enabled CUPS and THEN print a job, you will see re-print.
I also am not seeing the reprint! what do you mean that it only works "after the fact"?
My terminal does not let me type my password in. A question mark appears and after that I can't type anything.
Unfortunately not that I'm aware of. Maybe a feature that comes enabled by default in future versions of Mac X.
Ok now I understand that it only works after the fact. Is there a way to enable reprinting older jobs?
I followed everything exactly and entered my password and I am still not seeing the reprint button...
"Machine Password" is the user account password for the user you are logged in with. This would be the same password you use to install something on your Mac. I have updated this article and changed "machine password" to be "user account password". Let us know if you still have issues.
what is a machine password?
Hi,
I can't seem to understand what a Machine Password is and where is can be located
It's too bad this isn't an option in regular settings. I would sure like to be able to print a job from a couple months back. It has to be rewritten instead of reprinted.
Thanks for this.
Any other options? I can only reprint something I printed today. Hoping to print something from 2 days ago.
Does this work on Sierra?
Followed the terminal commands and still cant see anything showing under the control coloumns
David, only AFTER you enable CUPS will the control columns be populated. Test it and print something and see afterwords if a job populates with control info (after you have enabled CUPS)
Hello,
What does it mean by the machine password and where can I find it. Or what is it??