Walk into any modern office today and try to find a stapler. Seriously, try it. You’ll probably find a sleek standing desk, three different types of adaptors for a MacBook, and maybe a bowl of free granola bars, but that heavy, satisfyingly mechanical Swingline? It's missing. It’s gone. It’s become a ghost of the pre-pandemic workspace.
Where have all the staplers gone?
It’s not just that we’re "going paperless." People have been saying that since the 90s, and yet, somehow, the paper stayed. The real answer is a messy mix of supply chain collapses, the death of the "assigned desk," and a fundamental shift in how we actually value physical tools in a world obsessed with the cloud. We stopped buying them, we stopped maintaining them, and then, quite literally, we just lost them.
The Supply Chain Hiccup That Never Quite Healed
Back in 2021 and 2022, something weird happened in the world of office supplies. While everyone was screaming about microchips and used car prices, the humble stapler was quietly vanishing from warehouse shelves. Most of the world’s staplers—especially the budget-friendly ones found in big-box retailers—are manufactured in China. When the global shipping infrastructure buckled, staples and staplers weren't prioritized.
Retailers like Staples and Office Depot shifted their inventory focus toward home office chairs and webcams because that’s where the money was. The stapler was relegated to the "legacy" category. According to market data from the NPD Group, office supply sales saw massive spikes in technology-related categories, while traditional desktop "analog" tools stagnated. Manufacturers didn't see a reason to ramp back up.
If you've noticed your office supply closet is looking thin, it's likely because the procurement manager simply couldn't find a bulk order of reliable metal staplers for six months, got frustrated, and just... gave up. They bought a few boxes of paperclips instead. They're cheaper. They don't jam. They're boring.
Hot-Desking is the Stapler’s Natural Enemy
You can’t have a stapler if you don’t have a home.
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The rise of "hot-desking" and "hotelization" in corporate offices is the primary reason for the Great Stapler Disappearance. In the old days—think Office Space—you had a cubicle. That cubicle was your fortress. You had your photos, your weird calendar, and your stapler. You guarded that stapler. If someone borrowed it, you followed them.
Now? You show up, scan a QR code to reserve a slab of laminate for eight hours, and plug in your laptop. Companies don't want "clutter" on these shared surfaces. It makes the office look messy in the recruiting photos. Consequently, the staplers were moved to centralized "printing hubs."
But here’s the thing about humans: if a tool isn't within arm's reach, we stop using it. Or, more accurately, we "liberate" it. People go to the printing hub, use the stapler, and then subconsciously walk back to their temporary desk with it. At the end of the day, they don't want to walk all the way back to the hub, so the stapler ends up in a drawer, or a backpack, or under a pile of discarded masks. It’s a tragedy of the commons, basically.
The Adobe Sign Effect
We have to talk about the software. You can't ignore it.
The widespread adoption of Adobe Sign, DocuSign, and PandaDoc has done more to kill the stapler than the environmental movement ever could. It used to be that a "formal" document—a contract, a mortgage application, a legal brief—had to be physical. It had to be signed in ink and held together by a piece of bent wire.
In 2026, even the most traditional law firms have pivoted. When the legal weight of a digital signature became equal to a physical one, the need to print a 20-page document vanished. If you don't print the pages, you don't need to bind them.
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The stapler has been replaced by the "Merge PDF" button. It’s cleaner. It’s searchable. It doesn’t require you to find that one specific size of staple (the 26/6, usually) that your office never seems to have in stock.
The "Swingline" Quality Crisis
There’s a hidden factor here: modern staplers kinda suck.
If you find a stapler from the 1970s in a basement, it probably still works. It’s made of heavy-gauge steel. It could double as a blunt force weapon. But the stuff being sold in the 2020s? It’s mostly plastic and thin tension springs. They jam if you try to go through more than ten sheets of 20lb bond paper.
When a tool becomes unreliable, people stop looking for it. We’ve entered a "disposable" era of office hardware. When a $12 stapler jams for the third time, nobody clears the jam. They throw it in the trash. Since businesses are cutting costs, they aren't replacing them with the $40 heavy-duty models; they’re just not replacing them at all.
Digital Fatigue and the "Analog" Counter-Culture
Interestingly, there is a small, weird pocket of resistance.
In the world of "stationery nerds"—the people who spend $80 on fountain pens and $30 on Japanese notebooks—the stapler is making a comeback. Brands like Max (the Japanese company famous for their flat-clinch technology) and Zenith are seeing a cult following.
Why? Because tactile feedback matters. In a world where everything is a haptic buzz on a glass screen, the "thunk" of a well-made stapler is satisfying. It feels like doing work.
But this isn't happening in the corporate office. It’s happening in home offices. The staplers haven't vanished from the face of the earth; they’ve just moved from the 40th floor of a Midtown skyscraper to a boutique shelf in a suburban spare bedroom. We’ve privatized the stapler.
What This Means for Your Productivity
If you're still hunting through drawers wondering where have all the staplers gone, you might actually be feeling a specific kind of "friction" in your workflow. The disappearance of physical tools forces us into a purely digital environment which, honestly, can be exhausting.
The loss of the stapler is a signal. It’s a sign that your workspace has been optimized for the company's flexibility, not necessarily your personal comfort or the way your brain processes physical information.
How to Survive the Stapler-Less Office
- Invest in a "Personal Carry" Model: If you’re a person who still thinks better on paper, buy a small, high-quality Japanese stapler (like the Max HD-10XS). It fits in a laptop bag and won't jam.
- Master the PDF Workbook: Stop fighting the digital shift. Learn the keyboard shortcuts for "Combine Files" in Acrobat or your browser. If you can't find a stapler, stop creating a need for one.
- The "Corner Fold" Trick: It’s a lost art. If you have three pages and no stapler, fold the top left corner down, make two small parallel rips in the fold, and tuck the flap through. It’s not elegant, but it works in a pinch.
- Check the "Obsolete" Bin: Most offices have a graveyard of old tech. Look near the fax machines or the old filing cabinets. That’s where the 1990s-era metal Swinglines are hiding, covered in dust but perfectly functional.
The stapler isn't coming back to the mainstream. Like the Rolodex and the landline, it's becoming a specialized tool rather than a universal right. We are living through the final transition to a truly ephemeral workspace. If you still have a stapler on your desk, hold onto it. It’s a relic of a time when work was something you could actually hold in your hands.
Actionable Steps for the Modern Worker
- Audit your physical needs: Determine if you are printing because you need to or because of a habit. If you genuinely need physical copies, stop relying on "communal" supplies that are no longer being restocked.
- Upgrade your digital toolkit: If the lack of staplers is causing a mess of loose papers, it's time to fully commit to a digital filing system like Notion or Obsidian to mirror your physical notes.
- Secure your hardware: If you manage a team, recognize that "small" missing tools contribute to a sense of office dysfunction. Buying ten high-quality, tethered staplers for a communal area can actually boost morale more than a "fun" Friday pizza.