How to select a printer based on location on Windows 10
Printers aren’t expensive and most homes have them. Offices of course have them as well and often they have several printers instead of just one. If you work in a shared space, chances are you have at least one locally available printer. If you tend to use the same PC/laptop regardless if you’re at work or at home, you likely have to change the printer before you can print anything. What you may not know is that Windows 10 can select a printer based on location for you.
Requirements
The printers you use must be set up on your system. They need not necessarily be connected at all times but they must be set up i.e., installed.
You must enable location services on Windows 10. You can enable them from the Settings app under the Privacy group of settings. Go to the Location tab and enable location services.
Select Printer
Open the Settings app and go to the Devices group of settings. Select the Printers & scanners tab and scroll down to the end of the list of printers that have been configured on your system.
You will see an option called ‘Let Windows manage my default printer’. Enable it and print at least one document at home, and one at work. This will allow Windows 10 to understand which printer you use at a certain location.
It goes without saying that you can’t possibly use your home printer while you’re at work, and vice versa so after only a few print jobs, Windows 10 will automatically change the default printer based on your location.
If you have more than one printer available at your work place, Windows 10 will remember the last one that you used and set it as the default printer. This may, or may not be a good thing. Since the printer is set based on location, Windows 10 will group all your printers at work into the same location. The only way it can differentiate between them is by recent use.
If you have to work on a different floor within your work place and use a different printer, you will need to manually change the printer you use and Windows 10 will remember it for the rest of the day. You won’t have to select the printer each time you need to print something. Once you’re back to your usual work set up, you can again select the printer you normally use and Windows 10 will stick to it.
