Can you use a printer without the internet?
Yes. Printing is a local operation: a USB cable, an Ethernet cable or your own Wi-Fi network is all a printer needs. The internet is only required for cloud printing by email, for the manufacturer’s app and account features, and for firmware updates. None of those is needed to put ink on paper.
This question is newer than it sounds. Printers used to be obviously local devices; now the setup wizard asks for an account, the app wants a login, and it becomes genuinely unclear what the printer can do on its own. The short answer is almost everything, and the longer answer is worth having because some owners keep a printer offline deliberately.
What needs the internet, and what does not
| What you want to do | Needs the internet? | What it needs instead |
|---|---|---|
| Print from a computer | No | USB cable, Ethernet, or your own Wi-Fi |
| Scan to a computer | No | USB or a local network connection |
| Copy | No | Nothing — the printer does it alone |
| Print from a phone on the same Wi-Fi | No | AirPrint or Mopria over your own network |
| Print by emailing the printer | Yes | A cloud print service and an account |
| Manufacturer app dashboards and ink alerts | Yes | An account and a connection |
| Automatic firmware updates | Yes | A connection the printer can reach out on |
| Supplies subscription delivery | Yes | The plan reports your usage |
Based on the connectivity each manufacturer publishes for the printers in our registry. Individual setup flows vary: some printers ask for an account during initial configuration even though printing itself does not need one.
Read the first four rows as the answer to the question. Everything most people do with a printer sits in the group that needs no internet at all. What lives in the second group is convenience and management, plus the one item that makes this more than a technical curiosity: firmware updates.
How to set a printer up without an internet connection
- Use a cable for setup if you have the option. USB is the simplest. Ethernet is the better choice if more than one computer needs to print, because the printer joins your network without touching anything beyond it.
- Download the driver on a computer, not through the printer. Fetch the plain driver from the manufacturer’s support site rather than the full software bundle, then install it locally.
- Skip the account step. Most setup flows offer a “continue without” path. We go through this in how to use a printer without a subscription.
- Join your own Wi-Fi if you want phone printing. A printer on your home network can receive jobs from phones over AirPrint or Mopria without the printer or the phone reaching the internet. Local Wi-Fi is not the same thing as internet access.
- Turn off automatic firmware updates while you are in the settings. If the printer is going to be offline anyway this changes nothing, and if it is ever connected it means updates happen when you choose.
Why some owners keep a printer offline on purpose
Because firmware decides what supplies a printer will accept, and firmware arrives over the internet. HP’s Dynamic Security has rejected third-party cartridges on its cartridge-based printers, and PCWorld reported that HP later offered firmware for some models that removes the restriction. Brother was accused in 2025 of blocking third-party toner with firmware and denied it.
Covering that dispute, How-To Geek recommended disabling automatic updates or disconnecting the printer from the internet as a precaution for owners using compatible cartridges. That is the clearest statement of why this page exists: keeping a printer offline is not paranoia, it is a way of keeping the printer’s behavior fixed at the state you bought.
What you give up by staying offline
- Cloud printing from outside the house. Emailing a document to the printer from elsewhere needs a cloud service. Printing from a phone on your own Wi-Fi does not.
- Security and bug fixes. Firmware updates are not only about supplies. A printer that never updates also never gets patched, and a network printer is a device on your network. This is a genuine trade-off rather than a free win.
- Ink-level alerts and automatic ordering. Replaced by looking at the printer, or keeping a spare supply in a drawer.
- Some scan-to-cloud destinations. Scanning to a computer is local; scanning straight to a cloud drive is not.
Our own view is that the middle item is the one to weigh seriously. The sensible compromise for most households is to leave the printer connected but turn automatic firmware updates off, so updates are a decision rather than an event — and to buy a bottle-fed printer so that the decision carries no stakes.
If the printer is offline and will not print
“Printer offline” in a computer’s print queue usually has nothing to do with the internet. It means the computer cannot currently reach the printer on the local network — a sleeping printer, a changed Wi-Fi password, or a printer that has taken a different address from the router. Reconnecting it to your own network fixes it; an internet connection is not what is missing.
If instead the printer is refusing a cartridge, that is a different problem with a different cause. Start with printer DRM explained, or, if a subscription has recently ended, the page on exactly that situation.