Troubleshooting
Nothing is printing
Section titled “Nothing is printing”Check the folder’s status first. The card on the Ordner screen says what is wrong in most cases:
| Status | What to do |
|---|---|
| Pausiert | The folder is off, or Alles pausieren is on. Check both — the tray menu has the global one too. |
| Wartet auf Drucker | A printer is unreachable. Nothing is lost; fix the printer and it resumes on its own within a minute. |
| Ordnerpfad nicht gefunden | The folder has been moved, renamed or unmounted. Edit it and set the path again. |
| Drucker nicht gefunden | The printer was removed or renamed in the system. Edit the folder and select it again. |
| Aktiv | The folder is fine. Carry on below. |
Is the file type selected? A folder set to PDF only ignores JPGs completely, without any record. Edit the folder and check the type chips.
Is the file in a subfolder? Subdirectories are never scanned — only the folder itself.
Was the file already there when you created the folder? Existing files are marked as done at creation time unless you asked for them explicitly. Only new arrivals are printed. To print what is already there, move the files out and back in.
Has it been printed before? A file with content identical to one already printed from that folder is not printed again. Check Verlauf.
Wait one full interval. Then use Jetzt scannen from the folder’s menu to check immediately.
It prints, but nothing comes out of the printer
Section titled “It prints, but nothing comes out of the printer”Gedruckt means the printer accepted the job. Everything after that — jams, empty trays, a paused Windows print queue — is outside what Printy can see.
Check the operating system’s print queue. A queue paused in Windows accepts jobs and holds them indefinitely, and Printy has no way to tell that apart from printing.
A PDF fails every time
Section titled “A PDF fails every time”The history shows the reason. A PDF can be a valid file and still be unprintable: encrypted, truncated, or built unusually.
On Windows, install SumatraPDF and set its path under Einstellungen → Erweitert. Printy then hands it PDFs its own renderer cannot manage. This is the fix for most otherwise-unprintable PDFs.
On macOS there is no fallback. Re-export or re-save the PDF from whatever produced it.
The file itself is safe either way — a failed file is never deleted, even in a folder set to delete after printing.
”Failed on the first PDF” right after installing
Section titled “”Failed on the first PDF” right after installing”Almost always the portable variant with the PDF library missing.
Printy.exe needs pdfium.dll beside it. Separated, the application starts and looks perfectly healthy until the first PDF. Put the two files back in the same folder, or point Printy at the library under Einstellungen → Erweitert → pdfium-Bibliothek.
The regular installers carry the library inside and are not affected.
Half a page prints, or a page is cut off
Section titled “Half a page prints, or a page is cut off”Half a page, mid-transfer should not happen — Printy waits for a file to stop changing. If it does, the folder is almost certainly on a network share or a cloud-sync folder, which are not supported for exactly this reason: a file arriving through a sync client can look finished more than once. Watch a local folder and have the sync client write into it.
A page cut off at the edge on macOS with Inhalt an Seite anpassen off is expected behaviour, not a fault — see Platform differences. Turn the setting on.
Something printed twice
Section titled “Something printed twice”A reprint from Verlauf creates a new job on purpose, so both appear in the history.
Two copies of Printy cannot happen — starting it again brings the existing window forward.
The same content under two names in two different folders will print twice. Deduplication is per folder.
Printy is not running after a restart
Section titled “Printy is not running after a restart”Einstellungen → Start → Mit Windows starten. If it is on and Printy still does not start, check the system’s own startup-app settings — some management tools strip login items.
Remember that closing the window does not quit Printy. Check the tray before concluding it is not running.
No notifications
Section titled “No notifications”Check Einstellungen → Benachrichtigungen is not set to Aus, then check the operating system: if notifications are denied for Printy at system level, nothing appears regardless. The settings screen offers to request permission when that is the case.
Starting over
Section titled “Starting over”Printy keeps everything in one database file, shown under Einstellungen → Erweitert → Datenbank.
Quit Printy, rename that file, and start again for a completely fresh state.
Reporting a problem
Section titled “Reporting a problem”github.com/NoiXdev/printy/issues. The version from Über, the operating system, and the error text from Verlauf are what make a report actionable.