User guide

This is the normal PrintStash loop: add files, understand what you have, and find the right one later. It describes what the app does today. If terms like model, artifact, or recommended revision, skim Core concepts first.

The questions this loop answers:

• What did I slice, and when?
• Which G-code revision was the one that came out right?
• What slicer, material, and printer settings produced it?
• What does the toolpath actually look like?
• Where is it — and is the printer ready for it?
• Can I get my metadata back out?

1. Get a model in

Open the vault grid (/). A fresh install is empty, so start with one model you know well.

Open the upload modal and drop in an STL or 3MF. Pick a collection there, for example Functional/Brackets, and add tags inline if they do not exist yet. The upload runs in the background and appears in the task center while the thumbnail renders. When it finishes, a model card appears in the grid.

You don’t have to upload mesh and G-code together. The modal accepts mesh-only, G-code-only, or both at once — whatever you have on hand.

2. Add G-code and watch metadata appear

Upload a G-code file for that same model. Open the model detail page and look at the Overview tab: PrintStash has read the slicer comments and filled in the slicer name, layer height, infill, material, estimated print time, filament weight/length, and printer model where the slicer recorded it. This works across OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer, Bambu Studio, Cura, and Klipper/Orca-style profiles — though exactly which fields appear depends on what your slicer wrote, so blanks are normal.

Now look at the two viewers:

• 3D model — the mesh, with solid / x-ray / wireframe modes, fit-to-view, a build-plate grid, zoom, and a screenshot button. 3MF and OBJ are converted to a cached STL for preview; STL streams directly.
• G-code toolpath — the sliced path for the latest/recommended G-code. Scrub the layer slider, toggle travel moves, and turn on the bed overlay (drawn from known printer profiles).

The toolpath viewer is for recognition, not certification. It will not validate macros, acceleration, pressure advance, or firmware-specific behavior.

3. Build the revision story

This is the part that replaces guessing from filenames.

• Upload a second G-code revision, or edit the fields on an existing one in the Revisions tab.
• Set each revision’s status — needs_test, known_good, or failed.
• Drop a short note you will understand later: PETG, +5°C, tighter fit, warped at corners.
• Mark the best one recommended. Remember the invariant: marking one recommended clears the marker from the rest, so there’s always exactly one good answer.
• Use compare to put two revisions’ slicer/material/print settings side by side when you’re trying to remember what you changed.

Then log how it actually printed. The History tab takes manual print-job entries, or — if you’ve connected a Moonraker printer — imports matching history straight from the printer (see step 5).

4. Find it again

Later, back at the grid:

• Search by model name.
• Filter by collection (breadcrumbs let you drill into the tree) or by tag.
• Filter by printer presence to see what’s already loaded where.

The model keeps its mesh, revisions, notes, and history together, so finding it again is one search instead of a dig through old export folders.

5. Connect a printer

Add a Moonraker/Klipper printer from Printers and open its detail page. From there, watch live status, send a vault G-code file to it, sync its remote file inventory, and import its print history onto the matching models.

Open the Diagnostics tab to see the provider’s support level, capability checks, and which actions aren’t supported. PrintStash is Moonraker-first; Bambu LAN is beta and limited to status plus pause/resume/cancel. The full breakdown is in Printers & providers.

6. See what you’ve printed

Once print history is flowing in (from Moonraker imports or manual logs), open Statistics (admin-only) for the picture across your whole library. Pick a period — 7/30/90 days, 1 year, or all time — and you get total cost, prints, filament used, average filament per print, and total print time, plus a cost/filament/prints trend (area, line, or bar) and breakdowns of your busiest collections and most-used filaments. Cost is shown in the display currency you set in Settings → Design.

7. Get your data back out

Your library should not be a trap. From Settings → Overview, export metadata as JSON or CSV. JSON keeps the full library context; CSV gives one row per stored file. Exports include model fields, collections, tags, revision data, and slicer/mesh metadata.

They deliberately exclude the raw STL/G-code blobs, secrets, and printer credentials — and they require auth, because filenames, materials, and print history can leak more about a job than you’d expect. For moving or recovering an entire install (blobs and all), use full backup & restore instead.

Skip the manual upload: the OrcaSlicer hook

Once manual upload feels annoying, use the OrcaSlicer hook. PrintStash ships a post-processing script (scripts/printstash_orca_push.py) that you add to OrcaSlicer’s post-processing settings. After every slice, OrcaSlicer runs it and the exported G-code lands in the vault as a new revision.

A couple of things that make it pleasant to live with:

• It uses only the Python standard library — nothing to pip install.
• It authenticates with your username and a PrintStash API key (create one under Settings → Access), not your password.
• If PrintStash is offline, it exits 0 — so a down vault never breaks your slicing or export.

Point it at your upload endpoint with the API key. After that, new revisions show up when you export.