How to Find Your Printer's IP Address (and Keep It From Changing)

The printer worked yesterday, and today the computer can't find it. Or you need to add it on a new laptop and the setup asks for an IP address. Either way, you need the address of your printer. In this video we'll find it in seconds, open the printer's own web page, and make sure the address stays the same.

This is DeviceShelf's demo network, a made-up home with forty-four devices, two of them printers. On your own network you'll see your own printer.

The printer's menu often hides the address several levels deep, and the router's list may only call it by a cryptic name. A scan is quicker. Click Scan, and every device that answers appears with its address.

Type printer into the filter. DeviceShelf recognizes printers by the services they offer, so the filter finds them by type, even when the name says nothing. Here are two: an HP OfficeJet at one nine two, one six eight, one, dot thirty, and a Brother laser printer at dot thirty-one.

That address in the second column is the one you type into the printer setup, or into your browser.

Click the printer to open its details: the address, the hardware address, the vendor, the hostname and the exact model, here an OfficeJet Pro 9010.

Under Security you see how the printer can be reached. Port six thirty-one is IPP, the modern printing protocol that Macs and phones use for AirPrint. Nine one hundred is the classic raw printing port, and five fifteen the old LPD. Port eighty is the printer's web page.

Under Tools, Open web UI takes you straight to that page. That's where you check ink and toner, set up scanning to e-mail, or update the firmware, without looking up the address first.

And Print label makes a small sticker with a QR code for the printer, so next time the address is written on the printer itself.

With the address you can add the printer even when the computer doesn't find it by itself. On a Mac, open System Settings, Printers and Scanners, Add Printer, and choose the IP tab. Enter the address and pick IPP as the protocol. On Windows, choose Add a printer, then The printer that I want isn't listed, and add it by TCP/IP address. That also works when the printer sits in a different part of the network, where automatic discovery doesn't reach.

Why does a printer suddenly disappear? Usually because it got a new address. The router hands out addresses for a limited time. When a printer is switched off for a while, it can come back with a different one, and every computer that knows the old address stops printing. The timeline shows when a device went offline and came back.

DeviceShelf can tell you when that happens. Under Settings, Alerts, switch on the alert for address changes. It reports a device that kept the same address for days and then moves, which is exactly the printer case.

The real fix is a fixed address. The cleanest way is a reservation in your router: you tell the router to always give this hardware address the same IP address. The Network view helps with the planning. It shows the range the router hands out automatically, and warns when a device with a hand-set address sits inside that range, where it can collide with others.

If you connect your router under Settings, Scanning, DeviceShelf shows for every device whether its address is only leased or reserved. After you set up the reservation, you can check right here that it took effect.

To get to the router's settings, the Open router button in the printer's details opens the router's web page. Look for a section called DHCP reservation, static lease or address reservation, and pick the printer from the list.

A quick look at the second printer. The Brother also answers on port one sixty-one, SNMP. That's how printers report their toner level and status to management software. At home you rarely need it, and the security report lists it as a medium finding, so switch it off in the printer's web page if nothing uses it.

So: scan, filter for printer, and the address is right there. Open web UI for the printer's settings page. And when the printer keeps disappearing, give it a reservation in the router and let DeviceShelf tell you if the address changes anyway.

More videos about your home network are on our channel. DeviceShelf runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, at deviceshelf dot app.