Remote printing with the Octo Ship desktop app
Install the Octo Ship desktop app once and every label you buy — from your laptop, phone or a teammate's browser — prints straight to your shipping-station printer. No downloads, no print dialogs.
Remote printing connects Octoship to the printers on your packing-station computer. Buy a label anywhere — the panel on your phone, a teammate's laptop, or automatically from an order rule — and it prints on the right printer a second later, at the right size, with no PDF to download or print dialog to click through.
What you need
- A Windows 10/11 or macOS computer that stays on at your shipping station, with your label printer installed (see setting up a 4×6 thermal printer).
- Your Octoship email and password. The desktop app signs in with the same account.
- Captain or First mate access to choose default printers for your store. Deckhands can print but not change printer settings.
Install and connect
- 1Download the app
In the panel, go to Settings → Printing → Remote printing and download Octo Ship Print for Windows or macOS.
- 2Install it on the printing computer
Run the installer on the computer your printers are plugged into. It runs quietly in the system tray (Windows) or menu bar (macOS) and starts with the computer.
- 3Sign in
Open Octo Ship Print and sign in with your Octoship email and password. The computer appears under Settings → Printing within a few seconds, along with every printer it can see.
- 4Pick your printers
Choose a default printer for labels (4×6), packing slips (letter/A4) and customs forms. You can set different printers per ship-from location if you have more than one station.
- 5Print a test label
Click Print test label. If it comes out the right way up and fully inside the label edges, you're done. If not, see the fixes below.
Using it day to day
- Reprint any label from the shipment's page — it goes to the same printer.
- Batches print in order; the app queues jobs while the printer is busy or out of labels and resumes when it's ready.
- If the printing computer is off, jobs wait in the queue for up to 24 hours. You can also download the PDF any time.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Computer shows as offline | Make sure Octo Ship Print is running (tray/menu bar icon) and the computer is awake and online. Disable sleep on the printing computer. |
| Printer missing from the list | Install the manufacturer's driver, print a test page from the computer itself, then click Refresh printers in the app. |
| Label prints tiny or cut off | Set the printer's paper size to 4×6 in (100×150 mm) in the driver and choose 4×6 as the label format in Settings → Printing. |
| Jobs print twice | Only run Octo Ship Print on one computer per printer, or turn off auto-print on the extra computer. |
Still stuck? Send us a message with the computer name shown in Settings → Printing and we'll take a look.
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