How to Find Your Printer's IP Address: Every Method for HP, Canon, Epson and Brother

Quick answer: the fastest universal way to find your printer's IP address is to print a network configuration page from the printer itself — every networked printer made in the last fifteen years can do it, and it works even when your computer cannot see the printer at all. If the printer has a screen, Settings > Network > Wi-Fi status gets you there in about ten seconds. If it has no screen, hold the Wi-Fi or Information button for a few seconds and the printer prints the page for you. Everything else in this guide is a shortcut for a specific situation.

You almost never go looking for a printer's IP address for fun. You are looking for it because something broke — Windows says the driver is unavailable, the printer shows as offline while it is visibly sitting there powered on, or you are trying to add it manually because the automatic search found nothing. This guide covers every reliable way to get the address, what the number actually tells you, and the one setting that stops you from having to do this again in three weeks.

What a printer IP address is, in one paragraph

Your router hands out a private address to every device on your home or office network. It usually looks like 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x, and on some routers 10.0.0.x. That address is how your computer finds the printer. It is private to your network — nobody outside can reach it — and by default it is leased, not permanent, which is why printers that worked yesterday sometimes vanish today.

Two special cases are worth recognising the moment you see them, because they are diagnoses in themselves:

• 169.254.x.x — the printer failed to get an address from the router and assigned itself one. It is on Wi-Fi in name only. Nothing will print until this is fixed.
• 0.0.0.0 — the printer has no network connection at all. The Wi-Fi credentials are wrong, or it never finished joining.

If you see either of those, the address is not your problem — the connection is. Our printer Wi-Fi setup guide walks through re-joining the network properly, including the 5 GHz band issue that causes most failed setups.

Method 1: Print a network configuration page (works on every printer)

This is the method to reach for first. It needs no computer, no app and no working network connection between the printer and anything else. The printer tells you what it thinks its own address is, which is exactly the information you need.

HP

On models with a touchscreen: Setup (gear icon) > Reports > Network Configuration Page, or on newer models Settings > Reports > Network Summary. On models without a screen, hold the Wireless button and the Information button (the "i" in a circle) together for about three seconds; on older DeskJet and ENVY units, hold Wireless and Cancel (X) together. HP publishes a per-family breakdown in its own guide to finding an HP printer's IP address.

Canon

PIXMA models with a screen: Setup > Device settings > LAN settings > Confirm LAN settings > WLAN setting list, then choose Print details. On screenless PIXMA models, press and hold the Resume/Cancel button until the alarm lamp flashes about fifteen times, then release — the printer prints a network settings sheet. On MAXIFY and imageCLASS units the path is Menu > Network settings > Print network status.

Epson

Models with a screen: Setup > Network Settings > Print Status Sheet, or on EcoTank and WorkForce models Settings > General Settings > Network Settings > Network Status > Print Status Sheet. Screenless models: load plain paper, then press and hold the Network Status button (the icon with a document and a wireless symbol) for about five seconds.

Brother

Brother calls it the Network Configuration Report. On models with a screen: Menu > Print Reports > Network Configuration > OK. On screenless models, press the Go or Start button three times within two seconds. Brother documents the exact sequence per model family in its network configuration report instructions.

On the printed page, look for the line labelled IP Address under a heading like "IPv4", "TCP/IP" or "Wireless LAN". Ignore the MAC address (twelve characters with colons) and the IPv6 address (long, with letters and colons) unless you have specifically been asked for them.

Method 2: The printer's own control panel

Faster than printing a page if the printer has a screen, and it shows you the live value rather than a snapshot. The path is nearly always some variation of Settings or Setup > Network / LAN > Wi-Fi or TCP/IP > status. On HP touchscreens, tapping the wireless icon in the status bar usually shows the address in one tap. On Epson, Wi-Fi Setup > Network Status displays it without printing anything.

Method 3: From Windows

If the printer is already installed on the PC and you just need the number, you do not have to touch the printer at all.

1. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners and click the printer.
2. Choose Printer properties, then the Ports tab.
3. The checked port is usually named after the address — something like 192.168.1.87 or WSD-…. If it shows a WSD port instead of a number, click Configure Port to see the address, or fall back to Method 1.

There is also a one-line PowerShell answer. Open PowerShell and run:

Get-Printer | Select Name, PortName

Then, to translate a port name into an address:

Get-PrinterPort | Select Name, PrinterHostAddress

If you are here because Windows cannot find the printer in the first place, start from Microsoft's add or install a printer in Windows guidance and choose Add manually when the automatic search comes up empty. That path offers Add a printer using an IP address or hostname, which is exactly what the number you are hunting for is used for — choose TCP/IP Device as the device type and enter the address.

Method 4: From a Mac

Open System Settings > Printers & Scanners, click the printer, then Options & Supplies. The General tab shows the location and the Device URL, which contains the IP address in a form like ipp://192.168.1.87/ipp/print.

For a fuller picture, open Safari and go to localhost:631/printers. That is the built-in CUPS printing system's own web page, and it lists every installed printer with its full device URI. If CUPS reports that the web interface is disabled, open Terminal and run cupsctl WebInterface=yes first.

Method 5: Ask the router

Useful when the printer has no screen, will not print, and is not installed on any computer. Log into your router's admin page — usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in a browser — and look for a list called Attached Devices, Connected Devices, DHCP Clients or Device Manager. Printers usually announce themselves with a recognisable name such as HPF42A7B, Canon12AB34, EPSON5A1C9D or BRWA4B5C6.

This is also the fastest way to confirm the printer is genuinely on the network. If it is not in the list, no amount of hunting for an address will help — go back to Wi-Fi setup.

Method 6: The manufacturer's app

All four major brands surface the address inside their phone apps, usually under printer details or printer information:

• HP Smart — tap the printer tile, then Printer Settings > Advanced Settings, which opens the printer's own web page at its address.
• Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY — printer icon, then Printer details.
• Epson Smart Panel — Printer Settings > Network.
• Brother Mobile Connect — Machine Information.

Method 7: Chromebook and Linux

On a Chromebook, open Settings > Printing > Printers, click the three-dot menu next to the printer and choose Edit. The address appears in the printer's URI field. Our Chromebook printing guide covers adding one manually if it is not listed. On Linux, the same CUPS page works: localhost:631/printers.

What to do with the address once you have it

Type it straight into a browser on any device on the same network. Nearly every printer built since about 2010 runs a small built-in web server — HP calls it the Embedded Web Server, Epson calls it Web Config, Brother calls it Web Based Management. From that page you can usually:

• See true ink or toner levels, often more accurately than the desktop software
• Check the network status and signal strength
• Rename the printer to something you will recognise in a device list
• Set a static address or change DNS settings
• View the page count — genuinely useful if you are buying a used printer or working out your real cost per page
• Update firmware — though read our note on firmware updates and third-party ink before you do

Stop the address from changing: DHCP reservation

Here is the part most guides skip. By default your router leases the address to the printer for a set period. When the lease expires, or after a power cut, or when a new device joins, the printer can be handed a different number — and every computer that was configured to talk to the old one now reports the printer as offline. This is the single most common cause of a printer that "randomly stops working every few weeks".

There are two fixes, and one is clearly better:

Approach	Where you set it	Verdict
DHCP reservation	Router admin page — bind the printer's MAC address to a fixed IP	Recommended. The router keeps handing out the same address forever. Nothing on the printer changes, so it survives factory resets.
Static IP on the printer	Printer control panel or Embedded Web Server	Works, but you must pick an address outside the router's DHCP pool or you will eventually get a conflict. Lost on a factory reset.

Do the reservation once and the offline problem generally disappears for good. If yours keeps coming back anyway, our guide to why your printer keeps going offline covers the other causes — sleep settings, dual-band routers and the Windows "Use Printer Offline" flag among them.

Troubleshooting: what the symptom actually means

What you see	What it means	What to do
Address starts 169.254.	Printer self-assigned; it never got an address from the router	Re-run Wi-Fi setup; check you are joining the 2.4 GHz band
Address is 0.0.0.0	No network connection at all	Check the Wi-Fi password and that the printer is in range
Address works in a browser but nothing prints	Network is fine; the problem is the driver or the queue	See driver is unavailable and restarting the print spooler
Address changes every few weeks	DHCP lease is being reassigned	Set a DHCP reservation on the router
Browser cannot open the address	Your device is on a different network — often a guest network or a 5 GHz-only band	Join the same network as the printer and retry
Printer found, still will not print anything	Not a networking problem	Work through the full not-printing checklist

A note on printing that configuration page

It is a small irony that the standard way to diagnose a printer is to make it print. If the configuration page comes out blank, faint or streaked, the network is not your only problem — you are also looking at a clogged printhead or an empty cartridge. Our guide to faded and streaky prints covers the fix, and if it comes to replacing the cartridge, you can find the right one for your exact model on the Find Ink by Printer page, or browse HP, Canon, Epson and Brother ink directly.

Frequently asked

Can I find the IP address without printing anything? Yes — use the control panel, the manufacturer's app, your router's device list, or the printer's entry in Windows or macOS printer settings. Printing a page is simply the method that works in every situation, including when nothing else can see the printer.

Is the printer's IP address the same as my router's? No. The router's address is usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 and is the gateway for the whole network. The printer gets its own address on the same range.

Does the address change if I move the printer to a different room? Not by itself. It changes when the DHCP lease is reassigned or when the printer joins a different network.

My printer is connected by USB. Does it have an IP address? Not a network one. A USB-only printer talks directly to the computer it is plugged into and has no address on your network. If you want to share it, see Microsoft's guidance on sharing a printer, or connect the printer to Wi-Fi instead.

Is it safe to open the printer's web page? Yes, on your own network. It is served by the printer itself and is not reachable from the internet. Do set a password on it if the printer is on a shared or office network — anyone on that network can otherwise change its settings.