How to back up and restore printers in Windows. Backing up your printer settings and drivers might not be the first thing on your mind, but if you ever reinstall Windows or migrate to a new pc, having them ready can save you valuable time. In this guide, we'll show you how to export and restore your printers using built-in tools in Windows 10 and 11. Before we begin, be sure to subscribe to Ninja One's IT Video Hub and our YouTube channel. For more tech content like this, steps to Backup Windows includes two main tools for printer backup, the printer migration wizard, and the print management Snap in. Both create a dot printer export file that captures drivers and printer settings, including local and network printers. Let's start with the printer migration wizard. Available in all editions of Windows 10 and 11 except the home edition. To launch it, right click Start, select, run and enter. Print bbr mui. Do exe. Choose Export Printer queues and drivers. Select the print server. You want to back up this print server for your own PC or enter a remote server address. Review the list of items and save the export file to your desired location. Next, the print management Snap in is available in Pro and Enterprise editions. To use it open, run and enter print management. Msc, expand print servers. Right Click your system and select Export printers to a file. Follow the prompts to choose a save location and finish the export. How to restore. Now let's restore. If you've previously created a dot printer export file, you can restore it using either tool with the printer migration wizard. Choose import printer queues and drivers. Locate your export file and confirm the list of settings to be restored. Select the target server and choose whether to keep existing printers or overwrite existing printers. With the print management console, the steps are nearly identical. Open the console, right click your print server. Choose import printers from a file and walk through the prompts to complete the restore. One important note, these backups are architecture specific. A 64 bit backup will only work on another 64 bit system and a 32 bit backup will only work on another 32 bit system. For more information, check out our official blog post on backing up and restoring printers in Windows linked in the description below.