Disclosed herein is a mobile printer freefall detection and protection mechanism. Printers may be subject to vibration or free fall during printing. This is more likely to happen for a mobile printer. In such cases, the printing performance will be adversely affected a lot or a thermal printhead (TPH) in the printer could be damaged. This disclosure describes a system and method of solving this problem by measuring the G-forces at using at least one sensor to determine if it is safe to start operation again.