What This Article Covers
• What batch printing does, and where you can use it
• How to select sessions and send them to print
• What you see after you confirm
• The three reasons a batch is refused outright, and what to do about each
• Why the printer button sometimes isn't there at all
• How batch printing interacts with your print limits and your printers
• Troubleshooting common batch printing issues
Before You Start
You can select up to 20 sessions at a time in the gallery.
Batch printing prints one copy of each selected session. There's no copies picker.
When a batch can't go ahead, Snappic says why and queues nothing — it's all or nothing.
Batch prints count against your print limits like any other print, and each iPad counts its own event total.
Jobs go into the print queue, so you can leave the gallery while they print.
What Is Batch Printing?
Batch printing lets you select a set of sessions in the gallery and print them all in one action, instead of opening each session and printing it individually.
It's built for the moments when printing one at a time doesn't work: catching up after a rush, reprinting a run that was lost to a jam, or producing a set of prints for a client at the end of the night.
Where You Can Use It
Batch printing is available anywhere the gallery offers multiple selection:
The gallery activity — the full-screen gallery guests use at a sharing station, and that you use to find past sessions.
The gallery tab beside the camera, where recent sessions are shown during capture. Multiple selection appears there only when the gallery is expanded, not in the strip alongside the camera.
It works the same way in both. The upload queue's gallery has no multiple selection, so there's no batch printing there.
How to Batch Print
Open the gallery.
Tap Share Multiple at the top right. The button changes to Cancel Selection, and the header reads Share Selected Items (0).
Tap the sessions you want, up to 20. The count in the header keeps up as you go.
Tap the printer button in the row of share buttons.
Snappic asks to confirm — Confirm Prints, "12 prints will be added to the print queue." Tap Print, or Cancel to go back to your selection.
The share buttons only appear once you've selected something, and which ones appear depends on what your event has switched on. On an event with no sharing at all, the printer is the only button there.
Tapping a 21st session doesn't quietly do nothing — you get Limit Reached, "You have reached the maximum number of items you can share at once." That cap is on selecting, not on printing, so it applies to sharing a selection by email or SMS too. Send the batch, then select the next 20.
What Happens After You Confirm
The jobs are added to the print queue in the order the sessions appear in the gallery, selection mode closes, and a short toast confirms the count — "12 prints added to the queue". You don't have to wait around: the app doesn't lock up while the batch is queued, and you can leave the gallery straight away.
That toast means queued, not printed. The queue is where you watch them finish, and where anything that fails on the way to the printer — a jam, an open cover, a printer that's off — waits for you to retry it. See Using the Print Queue.
The count in the toast is what actually went into the queue, so it's the number to trust. Should printing be switched off for the event, or your printer setup stop covering these sessions, between confirming and queueing, you'd get the alert No Prints Added instead — "None of the selected photos could be added to the print queue. Check the printer setup and the event's remaining print allowance, then try again."
After sending a large batch, it's worth opening the print queue to check nothing failed. A jam or an empty ribbon partway through a batch of 20 is easy to miss otherwise.
When a Batch Is Refused
Snappic checks the batch before queueing anything. When it's refused, it's the whole batch: nothing is queued, and your selection is left intact so you can adjust it.
What you see | What it means, and what to do |
Print Limit Reached — "The print limit for this event has been reached." | This iPad doesn't have enough of the event total left to cover the whole selection. Select fewer sessions, or raise the event's print limit in your dashboard and refresh the event. |
Print Limit Reached — "One or more of the selected photos have reached their print limit." | At least one selected session has already used its per-session copies. Deselect the ones that have printed before, or raise the per-session limit. |
Print Queue Full — "The print queue can take up to 5 more prints right now. Print a smaller selection, or wait for prints to finish and try again." | Not a limit — the queue is busy. The number is live, so it tells you exactly how many you can send now. It rises again on its own as prints finish. |
The queue ceiling is the one that surprises people. Waiting prints and failed prints both take up room — so a jam that leaves a run of prints sitting failed doesn't just stop printing, it also leaves little space for a new batch. Clear the fault and retry the failed jobs, or cancel what you don't need, and the room comes back.
Why the Printer Button Sometimes Isn't There
The printer button appears only when every session in your selection can be printed. Select one that can't and it disappears; deselect that one and it comes straight back.
A session can't be printed when:
It's a video. Videos are never printable.
Printing is switched off for its template in your event settings.
No printer's routing rules cover it — its template doesn't match any configured printer's restriction. See Routing Templates to Printers.
A print limit is set to zero, which switches printing off for the event entirely.
Printer availability isn't part of this. A printer that's offline still takes the batch — the jobs rest in the queue as failed and you retry them once it's back, exactly as elsewhere in Snappic.
A used-up print limit does not hide the printer button. Limits are explained in an alert when you tap it, not by taking the option away. If the button is missing, it's one of the four reasons above — not an allowance you've run down.
Print-Only Events Get Multiple Selection
Multiple selection used to appear only on events with a sharing method enabled — email, SMS or QR. Now any event with printing enabled offers it too, so you can batch print on a print-only event. The button is still labelled Share Multiple, and on a print-only event the printer is the only button you'll find behind it.
Print Limits and Batch Printing
Batch prints count against your limits exactly like any other print: one copy per selected session, so a batch of 20 uses 20 prints.
They're counted as they print, not when you confirm the batch. So a job cancelled while it's still waiting is never counted, and a batch left queued when you walk away from the gallery is still counted as it prints.
Two things follow that are worth setting expectations around:
Each iPad counts its own event total. Stations don't share a running count, so a batch on one station never eats into another's allowance. Set your event total as a per-station figure. See How Event Print Limits Work.
The queue doesn't survive a relaunch. If the app is force-quit or crashes with a batch still waiting, those prints don't come out — and they were never counted, so the allowance is intact. Reprint them from the gallery.
Because the whole batch has to fit within what's left, a large selection near the end of an allowance is refused rather than trimmed. Select fewer, or raise the limit in your dashboard and let the event configuration screen refresh before starting again.
Batch Printing Across Several Printers
Each print in a batch is routed on its own, so a batch of mixed templates lands on whichever printer matches each one.
Where two printers are equally eligible — two identical unrestricted printers, say — Snappic spreads the batch between them rather than stacking it all on one. That's the fastest way to get a large batch out, and it's worth setting up before an event where you know you'll be printing in runs.
There's no failover in the other direction: if the printer that matches a job is offline, that job fails and waits for a retry. See Managing Multiple Printers.
Troubleshooting
Why isn't the printer button showing when I've selected sessions?
Cause: At least one selected session can't be printed at all, and the button only appears when everything in the selection is printable.
Fix: Deselect anything unusual — a video, or a session whose template has printing switched off or that no printer's routing rules cover — and the button reappears. A limit that's been used up is not the cause; that shows as an alert when you tap.
I tapped print and got "Print Queue Full". What's full?
Cause: Prints waiting and prints sitting failed share a limited number of places in the queue, and your batch needs more room than is left. It's usually the aftermath of a jam.
Fix: The alert names how many you can send right now, so you can send that many immediately. Otherwise clear the printer fault and use Retry All in the print queue, or Cancel All if those prints are no longer wanted, then send the batch again.
Why did my batch get refused for the print limit when I have prints left?
Cause: The whole batch has to fit in what's left. Twelve selected against eight remaining is refused rather than printing eight of them.
Fix: Select up to the number you have left, or raise the limit in your dashboard, refresh on the event configuration screen and start the event again.
I confirmed a batch and got "No Prints Added".
Cause: Nothing in the selection could be handed to a printer at the moment you confirmed — printing switched off for the event, or no configured printer's routing rules covering those sessions any more.
Fix: Check printing is still enabled for the event and that a printer covers those templates, then select the sessions again. Nothing was queued and nothing was counted, so your allowance is untouched.
Why can't I select more than 20 sessions?
Cause: 20 is the most the gallery lets you select at once, for printing or for sharing.
Fix: Send the batch, then select the next set and send another.
How do I print more than one copy of each session?
Cause: Batch printing prints one copy of each selected session by design — there's no copies picker on the confirmation.
Fix: Either run the batch again, or open individual sessions and use the copies picker there. Keep the per-session limit in mind: repeating a batch will be refused once a selected session has used its copies.
Why did only some of my batch come out?
Cause: The jobs were queued but some failed on the way to the printer — a jam, a cover left open, ribbon or paper out, or a printer that went offline partway through.
Fix: Open the print queue. Failed jobs are still there with the reason on the row. Clear the fault, then use Retry All.
Why did the toast appear before anything had printed?
Cause: Batch printing queues the jobs without making you wait, so the toast means they were queued rather than printed.
Fix: Watch the print queue to see them complete.
Why does my print-only event now have a "Share Multiple" button?
Cause: Multiple selection is now available on events that print but don't share, so batch printing can be used there. The button keeps its existing name.
Fix: Nothing to fix — tap it and you'll find the printer button waiting.
Why is my batch printing slowly?
Cause: A run of prints will make a dye-sub printer pause to cool, which is normal under load. The queue shows Cooling Print Head when it happens.
Fix: Nothing — printing resumes on its own. If you regularly send large batches, a second printer with the same routing restriction roughly halves the wait, because Snappic spreads the batch across both.
Related Articles
Using the Print Queue — watch, cancel and retry batch jobs.
How Event Print Limits Work — what counts as a print, and why each iPad counts its own total.
Managing Multiple Printers — run several printers at one event.
Routing Templates to Printers — decide which printer each template prints on, and pool identical printers.
Reprinting with Snappic — reprint a single session from the gallery.
Need Help?
Visit the Snappic Help Center or chat directly from your dashboard for live support.