The complete guide to Mac printing after Rosetta’s end‑of‑life on Apple silicon

If you look after Macs, you’ve probably already checked whether your print management client runs natively on Apple Silicon. That’s a good start. But printing isn’t one piece of software.

It’s a chain of applications, print queues, and printer drivers, and every link has to run on the same architecture. Your print management software may be ready for Rosetta’s end of life. Your printer driver might not be.

This guide explains what Rosetta end of life means for printing: what’s changing, why Mac printing is especially exposed, how to find the problem components in your fleet, and what to do before macOS 28.

Rosetta 2 (its full name, but from here on we’ll just call it Rosetta) is the translation layer that has kept Intel-only software running on Apple Silicon Macs since 2020. Apple always described it as a bridge, not a destination. That bridge is now being dismantled in two stages.

What this means in practice

macOS 27 is when Intel-only print components start failing by default. macOS 28 is when the workaround disappears. If you’re still relying on Rosetta for printing, you have until then to replace those components.

A single print job touches more of your environment than most software you own. Checking that your print client is native is necessary, but it isn’t enough. A fully native print client can still sit on top of an Intel-only driver, and that driver is the component most likely to fail.

How a Mac printer driver works

On macOS, a printer driver starts with a PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file. The PPD is a plain-text blueprint of the printer’s capabilities, and on its own it runs fine on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

The problem is what the PPD points to. Many manufacturer drivers link to one or more compiled components:

• Filters convert the print job into a language the printer understands.
• Print Dialog Extensions (PDEs) add custom options to the macOS print dialog, such as stapling, booklet creation or accounting codes.
• Back-ends handle custom job submission to the printer.

If any of these were built only for Intel, they can’t run on an Apple Silicon Mac without Rosetta. The print job often fails with a generic error like “The printer software is not compatible with this device”, which doesn’t explain why.

Other parts of the print chain to check

• Vendor utilities: configuration tools, scan utilities and helper processes that manufacturers haven’t rebuilt in years.
• Deployment packages: the MDM payloads, scripts and installers that put print queues on Macs in the first place.
• Older printers: devices that still work perfectly but whose manufacturer may never ship an Apple Silicon driver for them.

Why failures are hard to spot

Rosetta problems rarely cause a clean, fleet-wide outage. They cause inconsistent failure. Printing works at one site but not another, on one Mac model but not its neighbor, or for most jobs but not the ones sent to the finisher.

The trigger is usually ordinary: a new Mac is deployed, a user upgrades over the weekend, or someone selects a finishing option nobody has used since the last hardware refresh. That pattern is far harder to diagnose and support than a total outage.

When an Intel-only print component can’t run, macOS usually shows one of these errors in the print queue window:

• “The printer software is not compatible with this device”
• “Filter Failed”

Neither message tells you which component failed or points to the driver. So admins often chase the wrong cause.

Other signs that Rosetta is the problem:

• Printing stopped straight after a Mac upgraded to macOS 27.
• Basic printing works, but finishing options such as stapling or booklets don’t.
• The same printer works from some Macs but not others.
• Custom options have disappeared from the print dialog.

Most ways of checking for Intel-only software look at applications. Printer drivers, filters and plug-ins are easy to miss because they don’t appear as apps and only fail when a user prints.

An app or driver could use Intel-only, Universal, or Apple silicon binaries. A Universal binary means it contains both Intel and Apple silicon binaries in a single package, and the operating system selects the appropriate code to run. So in short, a Universal binary can run on either an Intel or Apple silicon Mac.

Check print queues and drivers with PaperCut’s free audit script

Our diagnostic script checks the print queues and PPDs on a Mac and flags any that depend on Rosetta. Download it and follow the steps in our Rosetta transition knowledge base article. It works whether or not you use PaperCut.

Check individual apps and utilities manually

In Finder, select an app, choose Get Info and check the Kind field. “Application (Intel)” means Intel-only. “Universal” or “Application (Apple silicon)” is safe. In Activity Monitor, the Kind column shows any process currently running under Rosetta.

This sequence works whether your Macs are still on macOS 26 or already on macOS 27. Steps 1 to 3 don’t depend on anyone else’s release schedule, so you can start today.

1. Discover Intel-only components. Run the audit above to identify the applications, printer drivers, vendor utilities and helper processes across your Mac fleet that aren’t native or Universal.

2. Map where each one is deployed. One unsupported driver on a single device at one site is a very different problem from the same driver across four campuses.

3. Print drivers. If you identify drivers that rely on Intel components, your first step should be to download the latest macOS drivers from your manufacturer’s website. Chances are very good that the latest drivers will be Universal. Note that the website might not mention macOS 27 or Apple Silicon, especially if it is a Universal driver that would run on both Intel and Apple Silicon.

   If you can’t find a compatible driver, and if your staff or students rely on the finishing options that this driver offers, then re-enable Rosetta for now, and set a reminder to check for updated drivers in a few months. At the time of writing, a couple of manufacturers are still working on Apple Silicon-compatible drivers.

4. Test real workflows on Apple Silicon. Don’t just check that the app opens. Print to the devices people actually use, with the finishing options they actually select, through the authentication method they actually have.

5. Update software and MDM packages first. Deployment payloads, installers and scripts need to be current before the OS upgrade, not after.

6. Phase the rollout. Start with a defined group, watch what breaks, then widen. A fleet-wide upgrade on day one gives you no signal and no rollback.

Partly. AirPrint and standards-based IPP printing move the work into macOS itself, which cuts your exposure to Intel-only driver packages considerably. If a workflow can print driverlessly, move it.

But many organizations still depend on manufacturer drivers for finishing or older devices. Driverless printing reduces the risk. It doesn’t remove it, so treat it as one option in your exceptions plan rather than a fleet-wide answer.

PaperCut’s Mac software now runs natively on Apple Silicon, without Rosetta. That covers PaperCut NG and MF, Mobility Print, Print Deploy, Hive and Pocket. For component-by-component status and fix versions, see our Rosetta transition knowledge base article.

Being native ourselves is only half the picture. So we’ve also built the audit script to help you find the Rosetta-dependent drivers in your fleet.

If you want to get control of the drivers in your organization, we recommend checking out Print Deploy in PaperCut MF, or Print Queue Deployment in PaperCut Hive. Both these features enable you to manage print queues and drivers for multiple operating systems from a single pane of glass.

Nobody in your organization should need to know what Rosetta was, which processor is in their Mac, or how a driver is compiled in order to print on the morning after an OS upgrade. Technical compliance is the minimum. An uneventful Monday is the goal.