Life hack: How to make your printer ink last longer

If you have a printer at home, there’s a good chance you’ve experienced the frustration of running out of ink well before you think you should. It is especially annoying to get the “low ink levels” alert on your computer when you only use your printer infrequently.

The astronomical cost of ink, combined with the fact that most modern printers require all colours to be filled even just to print in black and white make it all the more painful to be constantly replacing those cartridges.

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You’ll be happy to know that the dreaded notification on your computer is not necessarily a certain death sentence for your current cartridges (or, at least a sentence to a trip to the stationery store). With this clever life hack, you may be able to squeeze a few more prints out of those precious dollars using just a humble paperclip.

The thing is, the microchip on modern print cartridges can’t always accurately determine how much ink you have left. Sometimes they are wrong. When you get the popup telling you that one of your ink colours is running low, take that cartridge out, and with an unfolded paperclip press the “reset” button (located on the microchip).

Replace the cartridge in the printer, and you should find that the levels indicated on your computer have gone back up.

Do you have any other tips for making your ink last longer?