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Under Review

Sharing remote printers through ShipStation Connect

Related products:Printing & Documents
  • Oct 10, 2026 8:37 PM UTC
  • 4 replies
  • 48 views
JeffVan

ShipStation Connect printers are only shareable if the printer is locally connected to the computer running ShipStation Connect. In business IT, local printers are rare. They are rare because they expensive to support. Nearly all printers from small business up to enterprise are IP printers. If a print server exists--as it does in all but the tiniest, unmanaged systems--they are shared through it.

Stamps.com Connect allows printers published through Connect to be used by any number of Stamps.com client computers whether it’s shared from a print server or by direct IP. ShipStation Connect should do the same.

4 replies

  • JuanAdmin
  • Community Manager
  • Oct 12, 2026 2:40 PM UTC
Updated idea statusNew→Under Review
  • JuanAdmin
  • Community Manager
  • Oct 12, 2026 6:54 PM UTC

ShipStation Connect printers are only shareable if the printer is locally connected to the computer running ShipStation Connect. In business IT, local printers are rare. They are rare because they expensive to support. Nearly all printers from small business up to enterprise are IP printers. If a print server exists--as it does in all but the tiniest, unmanaged systems--they are shared through it.

Stamps.com Connect allows printers published through Connect to be used by any number of Stamps.com client computers whether it’s shared from a print server or by direct IP. ShipStation Connect should do the same.

Hey JeffVan, 

That’s a great idea, and I thought ShipStation connect does allow that, albeit I guess that one printer needs to have Connect running. I’ll look into this and see if I can find out if there’s any active plans. 

JeffVan
  • JeffVan
  • Author
  • Employee
  • Oct 14, 2026 6:09 PM UTC

​@JuanAdmin “albeit I guess that one printer needs to have Connect running.”

From (1) ShipStation Printing Basics – ShipStation Help

“The most efficient way to print is with ShipStation Connect. This requires ShipStation Connect to be installed and running on the printer workstation (the computer your printer is directly connected to).” [emphasis ShipStation’s]

More precisely, the computer to which the printer is physically connected via USB or parallel cable needs to have Connect running. IT consultant for many companies for many decades, here. No company I’ve served with a shipping/receiving desk has directly-connected printers. That’s among the reasons they would not use ShipStation.

  • JuanAdmin
  • Community Manager
  • Oct 14, 2026 7:53 PM UTC

Hi JeffVan,

I want to clarify how this works in practice versus how our help documentation is written. While our help articles emphasize USB to keep troubleshooting simple for home or small business setups, ShipStation Connect actually reads your operating system's print spooler. I believe. 

If you have a thermal printer mapped on your workstation or VM via a standard TCP/IP port or through a Windows Print Server, Connect will detect that print queue. Once it's added, you can toggle that printer to "Shared" inside Connect settings, and anyone in your ShipStation account will be able to print to it from their browser.

Where your feedback is completely spot on is the need for clearer documentation around network printing, as well as the request for Connect to run as a headless Windows Service rather than an active user-session app.

I'm keeping this thread Under Review and sharing this directly with our product and documentation teams so we can look at improving both the tooling and our IT-facing guides!

    JeffVan
    • JeffVan
    • Author
    • Employee
    • Oct 15, 2026 6:54 PM UTC

    ​@JuanAdmin, I just disabled my computer in SSC and removed SSC from it, and I stand corrected. And happily so! 😁

    I KNOW it hasn’t always worked that way because when I first started using SS 3 years ago and couldn’t print except from the computer SSC was installed on, I was told by support I’d need to install SSC on any computer from which I wanted to print directly. And they provided either the article I linked to, above, or one that was similar. I’ve been using it that way ever since. At migration to ShipStation, I was expecting SSC to work the way Stamps.com Connect worked and was disappointed because otherwise, SS offered a lot that Stamps was missing.

    So, yes, definitely update the KB to discuss remote printing to an SSC computer!

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