How to turn off Unknown Name and Withheld User in the macOS CUPS web interface

By default, CUPS has increased security and privacy settings that may mean that the Document Name (Name) and User (Username) are anonymised in the CUPS Web interface as shown below.

This behaviour is controlled by the JobPrivateValues directive in the cupsd.conf

To reveal the Document Name and Username in the Web Interface, you’ll need to edit the macOS CUPS config file.

You can do this by editing the cupsd.conf file directly or via the CUPS administration interface:

1. Open the CUPS admin interface in a browser: <a href="http://localhost:631" reseed-ignore class="urllink">http://localhost:631</a>
2. Select the Administration tab then under the Server section on the right, click the button Edit Configuration File.
3. Scroll down until you find the <Policy default> section then edit the JobPrivateValues to be none.

Example:

<Policy default>
  JobPrivateAccess default
  JobPrivateValues none
...

macOS will then ask for your local macOS username and password to restart the CUPS service. After restarting, you’ll be able to view the user and document name details in the CUPS job log:

Advanced configuration:

You may want to limit this information to specific users via the JobPrivateAccess directive.