How to Disable Brother Printer Software and Keep the Drivers Installed

Many Brother printer owners run into the same frustration: you just want a clean, minimal setup that lets you print, but Brother's installation package drops a collection of background apps, status monitors, and utilities onto your system that you never asked for. The good news is that you can disable or remove the software layer while keeping the core drivers intact — your printer will still work, and your system will run lighter.

Here's what that actually involves, why it matters, and what to watch out for depending on your setup.

What Brother Installs Beyond the Basic Driver

When you run a full Brother installation package, you're typically getting several distinct components bundled together:

• Print drivers — the essential files Windows or macOS needs to communicate with the printer
• Scanner drivers — separate from print drivers, required only if you use scan functions
• ControlCenter — a launcher app for scanning, copying, and fax features
• Status Monitor — a background utility that watches ink levels and printer status
• Brother Update Software — checks for firmware and driver updates
• iPrint&Scan / Brother Utilities — desktop apps for managing device functions

The drivers are what matter for basic printing. Everything else is optional software that runs in the background and, on older or lower-powered machines, can noticeably consume resources.

Why You Might Want to Remove the Software but Keep the Drivers 🖨️

The most common reasons people want this setup:

• Startup bloat — ControlCenter and Status Monitor often launch at boot, slowing startup times
• System tray clutter — Brother utilities park themselves in the notification area and run persistently
• Corporate or managed environments — IT policies may restrict third-party software while still requiring print capability
• Minimal-use printers — if you only print occasionally, full suite management tools feel unnecessary
• macOS resource concerns — on Macs, Brother background processes can trigger frequent permission prompts or consume memory

None of these situations require removing the drivers. The goal is surgical removal of the software layer only.

How to Disable or Remove Brother Software on Windows

Uninstalling via Apps & Features

On Windows 10 and 11, go to Settings → Apps → Installed Apps (or Apps & Features on Windows 10). Search for "Brother" and you'll typically see several entries. You can selectively uninstall:

• Brother ControlCenter
• Brother Status Monitor
• Brother Update Software
• Brother Utilities

Leave the driver packages alone. These are usually listed separately and named something like "Brother [Model] Printer Driver" or appear as a device in Printer Settings rather than as a standalone app.

Disabling Startup Entries

If you want to keep the software installed but stop it from launching at boot, open Task Manager → Startup tab (Windows 10/11). Locate any Brother entries — Status Monitor is a frequent offender — and set them to Disabled. This prevents autostart without uninstalling anything.

Using the Registry or Services (Advanced)

Power users sometimes disable the Brother Status Monitor service directly via Services (services.msc). Locate the service, set it to Manual or Disabled, and it won't load unless explicitly called. This is more precise than uninstalling but requires comfort with Windows service management.

How to Disable Brother Software on macOS

macOS handles this somewhat differently. Brother installs login items and background agents that can be managed through System Settings → General → Login Items (macOS Ventura and later) or System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items on older versions.

Remove Brother entries from the login items list to stop them from launching at startup. The drivers themselves live in /Library/Printers/Brother/ and are not affected by removing login items.

For a deeper clean, Brother background agents often appear under LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons in /Library/. Locating and removing specific .plist files associated with ControlCenter or Status Monitor prevents them from running — but this requires navigating hidden system folders and carrying out some manual file management.

What Breaks If You Remove Too Much

This is where the variables matter most. The consequences of removing components depend heavily on which Brother model you own and which features you actually use:

If your model is a multifunction device (print, scan, copy, fax), the software layer does more real work than it would on a basic print-only machine. Removing ControlCenter on an MFC series device means losing convenient scan-to-PC shortcuts — though you can often replace this with Windows Fax and Scan or third-party scanning tools.

The Variable That Changes Everything 🔧

How aggressively you can strip out Brother software without losing functionality depends on:

• Your Brother model — basic laser printers vs. MFC multifunction units have very different software dependencies
• Your operating system version — newer Windows and macOS versions handle printer drivers differently, and some older Brother packages weren't designed with clean separation in mind
• How you scan — if scanning is a regular part of your workflow, the tradeoff calculus shifts significantly
• Your technical comfort level — disabling startup entries is low-risk; editing LaunchDaemons or the registry carries more potential for error

A user with a basic Brother laser printer on Windows 11 who only prints documents can typically remove every piece of Brother software except the driver with zero functional loss. A user with an older MFC device on macOS who scans regularly may find that aggressive software removal creates friction that wasn't worth it.

Your own setup sits somewhere on that spectrum — and which side of the line you're on shapes what a "safe" removal actually looks like for you.