Sometimes, you may keep seeing a pop-upwardly message on your Mac saying, "printtool is trying to modify the printer settings." The message too asks you to enter your user name and countersign to alter settings. Lastly, this message may seem to announced randomly and intermittently. Sometimes, this bulletin may appear every time you lot want to use your printer or scanner. If you are seeing this message, you may wonder what printtool is and what would happen if yous enter your credentials and click the Modify Settings button; and you may wonder what y'all can do to stop this pop-up from appearing. This article volition requite you information to help you reply these questions.

printtool popup

What is printtool? Why does this popular-upwardly announced?

Printtool is a macOS process. It is partly responsible for managing press interfaces. More specifically, printtool is a arrangement procedure that checks if your printer is available and set up to print. If yous open Activity Monitor and search printtool, y'all will encounter this process.

This pop-up may appear for two chief reasons:

  1. You lot have installed a printer's software (also called a printer driver) to add a printer, merely the printer is no longer available.
  2. Users who are trying to access the printer practice not have the privileges to print or browse.

How you lot can fix things to stop the printtool message

There are a few things you lot can try:

one. Delete unused printers

First, permit's remove the printers from your Mac that are not available to you anymore. Once you lot remove them, your outcome may be gone. Here is how:

  1. Go to Apple card > Organization Preferences, and then click Printers & Scanners.
  2. Check the list of bachelor printers.
  3. Select the 1 that is non available.
  4. Click the (-) Remove button. A pop-up will announced saying, "Are you lot certain you want to delete the printer…"
  5. Click Delete Printer.
Delete Printer

2. Give the user the necessary privileges

If a user (this could exist you yourself) does non have sufficient privileges, he or she may run into this problem. To give the privileges, add together the user to the Print Administrators Grouping using Directory Utility.

First, open Directory Utility. The easiest way to open up this is to utilise Spotlight. Open Spotlight (with Command – Infinite bar) and type "Directory Utility," and then hit Render.

The next steps may seem confusing, but don't worry, it is easy. To go far fifty-fifty easier for y'all, I include a screenshot below, which shows all the steps. Just follow the numbers on the screenshot.

Directory Utility screenshot
  1. Click the Directory Editor tab.
  2. Open up the Viewing drop-down menu and select Groups.
  3. In the search box, type print.
  4. From the results, select Print Administrators.
  5. Click the Lock icon adjacent to Non authenticated (which is located under the Directory Editor tab) to unlock the department. Enter your Mac user name and password.
  6. Select GroupMembership. Click the (+) Add push button next to the GroupMembership line. You lot won't see it if you did non unlock this section.
  7. Enter the user name that keeps seeing this printtool pop-upwardly bulletin. In the text area underneath the listing, supersede "new_value" (which is already selected) with the user name, like stacey (in our screenshot, the user name is macReports.com).
  8. Click Save, then quit Directory Utility.
  9. Restart your Mac.

3. Reset the print system

The last pick you have is to reset the print system on Mac. We have previously explained how you tin can do this in another commodity. Please run into How To Reset The Mac Printing Arrangement.

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Dr. Serhat Kurt worked as a Senior Applied science Manager. He holds a doctoral caste (or doctorate) from the University of Illinois at Urbana / Champaign and a master's degree from Purdue University. Here is his LinkedIn profile. Email Serhat Kurt.