Watched folders
A watched folder is the unit Printy works in. Each one carries its own printer, its own settings and its own check interval, and they do not interfere with each other.
What a folder is checked for
Section titled “What a folder is checked for”On each interval Printy lists the folder — not its subdirectories — and looks for files matching the chosen types that it has not seen before.
A candidate is only queued once it is stable: Printy observes the file twice and queues it only when size and modification time have stopped changing. A scan still being written, or a large file still copying over, is left alone until it settles. This is what stops half a page coming out of the printer.
Subdirectories are deliberately never scanned. That is what keeps the printed and failed folders from being picked up and printed again.
The settings
Section titled “The settings”Name and folder
Section titled “Name and folder”The name is only for you. The path must be a local folder.
Dateitypen
Section titled “Dateitypen”PDF, JPG, PNG and TIFF. JPG covers .jpg and .jpeg, TIFF covers .tif and .tiff. Anything not selected is ignored completely — it is not printed, not moved, and not recorded.
Prüfintervall
Section titled “Prüfintervall”How many seconds between checks. Three is the default for new folders and is a reasonable choice: a folder that receives a document every few minutes gains nothing from being checked every second.
The default for new folders is itself configurable under Einstellungen → Ordner-Überwachung.
Drucker
Section titled “Drucker”The printers offered are the ones the operating system knows about, with the system default preselected. Printy asks the printer what it supports — a printer that cannot do duplex or colour has those controls reported as unsupported rather than silently ignored.
Kopien, Duplex, Farbe
Section titled “Kopien, Duplex, Farbe”Straightforward. Duplex (lange Kante) is the usual double-sided setting for portrait documents; kurze Kante is for documents bound at the top.
Inhalt an Seite anpassen
Section titled “Inhalt an Seite anpassen”- On (default) — content is scaled to fill the printable area, keeping its proportions, and centred. This is what people expect from “print this”.
- Off — content is printed at its original size, centred. Labels, receipts and small scans stay crisp instead of being blown up into a soft full-page image.
Content larger than the paper is shrunk in both modes. Off means never enlarge, not never scale — printing an oversized page at natural size would push content off the paper, which is lost data, not fidelity.
Nach dem Druck
Section titled “Nach dem Druck”See After printing.
Editing a folder
Section titled “Editing a folder”Open the folder’s menu and choose Bearbeiten.
An edit does not only apply to future files. It is also written onto the jobs of that folder that are still waiting — those in Wartet or Wiederholt. The realistic reason to edit a folder is noticing that the wrong printer was set, and watching ten already-queued files go to the wrong device anyway would be precisely the wrong behaviour.
Two exclusions are deliberate:
- A job that is currently printing is never touched. It has already been handed to the print spooler; changing it would either do nothing or switch device mid-document.
- Finished and failed jobs are never touched. They are history. Rewriting what a job was printed with would make the record lie — the log would name a printer the paper never came out of.
Folder actions
Section titled “Folder actions”Each folder card has a menu:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pausieren / Fortsetzen | Stops or resumes this folder alone. |
| Jetzt scannen | Checks immediately instead of waiting for the interval. The stability check still applies — a file being written is still not printed. |
| Bearbeiten | Opens the settings. |
| Im Explorer öffnen | Opens the folder in the file manager. |
| Löschen | Removes the folder from Printy. |
Alle Ordner neu einlesen on the Ordner screen does the immediate check for every enabled folder at once.
Deleting a folder
Section titled “Deleting a folder”Deleting asks first, and the question names what will actually happen — how many jobs are waiting and what becomes of them. Files on disk are never touched; only Printy’s record of the folder goes away.
Folder status
Section titled “Folder status”| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Aktiv | Watching on its interval. |
| Pausiert | This folder is off, or Alles pausieren is on. |
| Wartet auf Drucker | The queue is held because a printer is unreachable. Nothing is lost. |
| Ordnerpfad nicht gefunden | The folder no longer exists. Watching has stopped. |
| Drucker nicht gefunden | The configured printer is no longer installed. |
The last two stop the folder rather than filling the history with failures. Fix the path or pick another printer, and it resumes.
Pausing everything
Section titled “Pausing everything”Alles pausieren on the Ordner screen stops all watching at once, and the tray icon shows it. Use it while changing printer drivers, swapping toner, or doing anything else where printing at that moment would be unhelpful. Files that arrive while paused are not lost — they are picked up when you resume.