Four of the Best Third Party Mobile Printing Apps

Given the advances in mobile technology, and the raft of files that can be viewed on mobile devices, it’s still a source of frustration that printing an email or document from your phone isn’t as easy as printing from a computer.

While printer manufacturers have been hard at work on a range of nifty apps and wi-fi enabled printers that allow mobile users to print directly from their phone, using these apps usually ties you to your particular printer, which kind of goes against the mobile part of printing.

Fortunately, there are plenty of innovative apps that allow you to print to more or less any brand of printer you wish from a range of devices, from Android to iOS. Here are five of the best.


PrinterShare - Free / £7.95 for Premium

PrinterShare is one of the most popular third party printer apps on the market and is available for both iOS and Android. The app is relatively easy to set up, although you do need to register online and install an app on your home computer before using the mobile app.

This doesn’t tie you to one printer however; should you know the username of a fellow PrinterShare user, you’ll be able to print photos, documents and even contacts from your phone using their printer. Although they will have to approve it first, so ‘pranksters’ planning to use up their friends printer supplies by printing 1000 photos of their face will have to find some other way to do it.

PrinterShare is free initially, although it costs £7.95 to upgrade to the premium version which allows unlimited printing.


Printopia - free/ around £13 for premium

Printopia utilises Apple’s Air Print to print documents from iPhone and iPad devices. Unlike Air Print, however, Printopia allows users to print to any Mac-connected printer rather than just HP devices.

Before using Printopia on your mobile device, you first need to install it on your Mac. This will allow the app to register all of the printers connected to your Mac. This information is then shared to your mobile device, allowing you to print to said devices. The obvious drawback for this app is that you have to have a Mac to actually use it, but for Apple fanatics, it’s ideal.


Cloud Print - Free

A simple app, Cloud Print utilises Google’s Cloud Print service to allow users to print directly from their mobile device, although the app isn’t actually made by Google.

Before using the app, you’ll first need to set up Cloud Print. For Cloud Print-enabled printers (of which there are few), this is a relatively easy process of logging into your Google account and connecting the printer to the cloud. Doing this means you can print directly from the Cloud Print app without even having to have your computer turned on.

For ‘classic printers’, the process is a bit more difficult. Firstly, you’ll need to install Google’s Cloud Print Connector. Then, you need to enable it in Chrome - for full information on how to do this, check out Google’s in-depth guide.

On the whole, Cloud Print is a relatively easy app to use and is certainly one of the more simple ways of printing directly from a mobile device.


PrintHand - free trial / £6.17

PrintHand is an Android app allowing users to print to just about any connected and printer they wish to, without the need for the computer to actually be on. Additionally, the app is also compatible with Google Cloud Print.

PrintHand can print documents, photos, web pages, calendars and even Google Drive files. There is a catch, however; while PrintHand allows you to print a test page for free, actual printing requires an in-app upgrade which, at the time of writing, costs £6.17, although this is a small price to pay for the convenience afforded by the app.

Of course, all of this mobile printing is going to require a lot of ink cartridges, so pop down to your local Cartridge World store or take a look at our online range for a cheaper way to resupply your printer!


Image credit: Phil Roeder