Early-age Drying is a major source of damage in printable and printed cementitious materials, yet evaporation, capillary pressure, shrinkage and cracking are rarely considered as a unified process. This review proposes an integrated framework for drying-induced shrinkage and cracking in extrusion-based 3D concrete printing (3DCP), linking environmental, geometrical, process and material characteristics to damage evolution and performance of hardened concrete. Compared with cast concrete, deposited filaments expose all surfaces immediately and possess surface-to-volume ratios one to two orders of magnitude greater, while the high paste volumes required for extrudability amplify drying-induced deformation. In accelerated set-on-demand (2 K) systems, rapid stiffening suppresses viscous stress relaxation, potentially enabling cracking before sufficient tensile strength develops.Drying behavior is interpreted through the competition between evaporative flux and capillary supply, governing the transition from the constant-rate to the falling-rate drying regime. This framework is supported by recent experimental advances, including digital image correlation, distributed fiber-optic sensing, near-infrared hyperspectral imaging, miniature tensiometers, and original measurements. Damage manifests initially as cracklets in the fresh state, then as propagating macro-cracks as stiffness develops. These mechanisms may also contribute to incomplete near-surface hydration, coarsened pore networks, reduced strength, weaker interlayer bond and anisotropic durability.Mitigation strategies are reviewed across scales, from evaporation control using external curing films and bio-films to crack mitigation based on superabsorbent polymers, shrinkage-reducing admixtures and water-soluble polymer treatments. The review highlights the need to integrate systematic curing strategies, matched to both evaporative demand and to the formulation-specific vulnerability window, into 3DCP process design from the outset.