When you use a laptop for the office and home, we often have to change the printer. Windows 10 doesn’t offer an easy way to change the printer, as it will make sure there is a default printer. It happened to me so many times that I had put something to print only to realize that it had gone to my Office printer instead of one at home. So how do you set a default printer in Windows 10? This is what we will examine today.
How to set the default printer in Windows 10
To set the default printer on your Windows 10 PC, do the following:
- Open Windows 10 device settings (Win + I)> Devices
- Switch to printers and scanners
- Click the printer that you want to set as default, then click Manage
- Then click the Set Default button to set the default printer.
Once you have done that, the printer will appear as the selected printer when you go to print anything. In addition, the printer will have the Default status in the printer list.
Automatically switch the default printer based on location
While it’s easy to change the default printer, it doesn’t help. If the default printer can change automatically depending on the location of the computer. So if I go home, the default printer is my home printer and the office printer when I go to work.
Let Windows manage my default printer
Under Printers and Scanners, check the box that says “Let Windows manage my default printer. “When this option is enabled, Windows sets your default printer as the one you most recently used at your current location.
However, it has a drawback in certain use cases. If you continue to change the printer in the office, the default printer will be the recently used printer in this location.
I hope you have found the guide useful and have been able to set the default printer for Windows 10.
There is no network option to change the default printer like in Windows 7, so you’ll have to let Windows manage the default printer.
PS: Check this message if the default printer keeps changing in Windows 10.
