Most “best printer for Mac” lists are the same list as everyone else’s with the word Mac inserted. There is a real difference, though, and it is on the manufacturer’s own specification page: Brother says that printing from macOS requires AirPrint, because Mac printer drivers are not provided.
How we picked
We read the macOS line on each manufacturer specification page rather than assuming compatibility. Every printer recommended here has AirPrint named on the maker’s own page, which is what removes the driver question entirely.
Where a manufacturer did not publish AirPrint support on the specification we could read, we have not claimed it. That is why the Canon mono laser covered elsewhere on this site is absent from this page: its specification source does not state AirPrint, and we do not publish a capability we could not verify.
After that the ordinary filters apply — cost per page, automatic duplexing, and whether the cartridge is one you would willingly buy twice.
What AirPrint actually means on a Mac
Apple describes AirPrint as something that helps you create full-quality printed output from an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Vision Pro without needing to download or install drivers, and states plainly that to use an AirPrint-enabled printer you do not need to install additional drivers or other software. The one requirement Apple publishes is that your device is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the printer. Apple’s own page.
For a Mac buyer this converts the printer question into a compatibility question. You are no longer asking whether the manufacturer maintains a macOS driver for the version you are on. You are asking whether AirPrint is on the box.
What you give up without a driver
AirPrint exposes a standard set of options: paper size, copies, duplex, color or grayscale, and quality where the printer reports it. What it does not expose is the manufacturer-specific extras that a full driver traditionally carried — toner-save modes, stored print jobs, secure print with a PIN, tray selection by media type on machines that have several trays.
For a household or a one-room office this is nothing. If you were planning to rely on a specific vendor feature — secure release printing, for instance — check that it survives the AirPrint path before you buy the machine for it.
Scanning is a separate question
AirPrint is a printing standard. Scanning from a Mac uses a different mechanism and a different piece of software, and the two are frequently conflated in printer reviews. If the reason you want an all-in-one is Mac-side scanning rather than printing, treat the scanner as its own purchase decision and check the workflow on the manufacturer’s support pages for the exact model.
Both all-in-ones here carry a fifty-page automatic document feeder, which is the hardware half of the problem solved regardless of which software drives it.
Laser or tank, for a Mac?
The platform does not change the economics. A mono laser is about 3.3 cents a page; a refillable tank printer is about 0.4 of a cent. Under roughly forty pages a month the laser is still cheaper to own because the purchase price dominates; above it, the tank pulls away. The arithmetic, and the tank printers with AirPrint on Epson’s own page.