When Xaar launched the revolutionary 1001 printhead with patented TF Technology® in 2007 it opened up a number of applications to digital print. The ability to handle heavily pigmented inks, avoiding problems such as sedimentation, has been a crucial enabler in areas, for example ceramic tile decoration, glazes, and for white inks. Since then, recirculation of ink within the printhead has been widely adopted by manufacturers, and a number of printheads offer an ink recirculation capability [1] [2] [3]. Their approaches to recirculation and operational ranges differ. Xaar TF Technology® recirculates the ink through the actuator channels, immediately past the nozzles, and with relatively high flow rates; other printheads recirculate through the ink manifolds, and/or ink flow rates used by different printheads vary significantly. Besides the challenges of heavily pigmented inks, ink recirculation can have an impact on other aspects of printhead performance. The flow of ink can move debris and bubbles from the ink path, both before they have a chance to impact jetting, and after to recover from a jetting failure. It may even act to maintain the nozzles themselves, but only when the recirculating flow is close to the nozzles. This publication presents a study on the important factors needed for ink recirculation to offer advantages, and what those advantages are. The study considers aspects such as print reliability, both prevention of and recovery from failures, nozzle latency (decap), and priming. It also considers the interactions between recirculation and stability of inks, in particular high pigment loading inks. Using the TF Technology™ of the Xaar 1003 printhead, Xaar's latest evolution of the 1001, factors such as the flow rate of the ink and its impact on the above aspects are studied. The work presented shows that recirculating flow, when it occurs immediately behind the nozzle in a Xaar 1003 printhead, does interact with the fluid in the nozzle itself. This in turn improves nozzle latency such that if recirculation of ink continues when the nozzles are idle, the length of time a nozzle can be left idle for before an adverse effect is seen with some inks can be increased (figure 1). This is in contrast to some previous results with alternative recirculation conditions [4] Testing also shows that an ink that shows a level of unreliability at a low recirculation flow rate can operate reliably with a higher recirculation rate. Therefore it is not simply having ink recirculation that is important, but the precise operating conditions, and in particular a sufficient flow rate.