Posted on by bakert

Clear Print Queue (Windows)

So you cancel a print job using Document, Cancel. But it just won’t disappear and nothing will come out of the printer (all queued behind the “deleting” job). Simple answer: restart the “Print Spooler” service. Either in Administrative Tools (Control Panel or Start Menu) or using net stop "Print Spooler" then net start "Print Spooler" at a command prompt. Easy, but it was driving me mad.

53 Replies to “Clear Print Queue (Windows)”

  2. Yeah I know it is dead simple but when you have a “doesn’t believe in error messages” and “one button that just flashes” HP Deskjet 3650 you suddenly discover you NEED to know this stuff. Strangely it never came up in the 9 months I did helpdesk (or my memory is shot). Must have just told them to reboot and not worried about it because it wasn’t my time!

  3. Very many thanks for this frozen print queue fix. Now I may be able to get my university assignment in on time. Clever too of Google to steer me this way.

  5. I wrote a utility that takes care of print spooler problems:
    http://www.bradkovach.com/2006/printflush/

  7. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was about to go nuts. Windows Help was useless in trying to solve this. Your solution worked like a charm.

  8. Wow, thanks so much — I knew about the net stop/net start but I didn’t realize Print Spooler was on there. Thanks for the tip-off, I was having some trouble clearing the queue.

  12. thanks for the original solution, and the utility they both work great. I didnt even know there was a way of fixing this, after five years of having to mess with the printer before it cleared.
    thanks!

  13. Still did not clear.

    I uninstalled printer, rebooted, unplugged printer, rebooted, did spooler thing several times.

    Please help.

    Greg

  14. excellent tip thankyouthankyouthankyou!

    this has been a problem for what, almost 15 years now? I remember this problem in Win 3.1 and every single version since.

    probably was in win 1 & 2 too, but i started with 3.1

  15. TXS DUDE–my wife has offered to marry you as husband number two (think carefully whether that’s a good thing or not)- we can actually get her resume out tomorrow!!!

  17. After midnight and my frustration was just alleviated by your mention of this easy to perform fix. Thank you.

  18. Brad – Thanks for this utility. It cleared up my spool even after i rebooted, turned everything off/on, cleared the spool (or tried to but failed). This worked like a charm! You rock. Once I tried the utility, the thing cleared everything up and I was able to use the print spooler again with my printer.

  19. I just had this same problem, stuck print job in the print queue. I thought there had to be a better way than the ultimate Windows error resolution of “REBOOT”, and a post mentioned to try from the printer dialoge window menus “Printer->Cancel All documents”. So I did that, and the stuck print job went away like POOF !

    – Mike

  20. Yeah, thanks for it. I couldn’t quite remember how this is done but know I’ll remember it for next time.

  21. ok it didnt work for me. i have a laptop and my mom has a laptop and the printer is hooked up to my sisters desktop were the family network is from. my mom jammed up the spool service with a 20mb file and it would not go or delete, so to clear it i went to the folder “c:\windows\system32\spool\printers” and then opend up the command prompt “run>cmd” and typed in “net stop spooler” at this point the spooler server should have stopped. then delete all files in the printers folder, go back to the command prompt and type “net start spooler” now go to the printer queue and right click on an empty spot in the queue and clear all jobs. then it cleared up for me. in the end i just compressed the pictures on the page for my mom and it turned out fine. hope this helps

  22. It still hasn’t worked. I’ve tried all of the suggestions, and nothing works. The last print job still reads “Deleting- Printing” I’ve restarted, stopped and started spooler, and repeatedly cancelled print job. HELP!

  23. I’m with heather. I hate to reboot.
    Heahter said,
    July 25, 2007 @ 6:29 pm

    It still hasn’t worked. I’ve tried all of the suggestions, and nothing works. The last print job still reads “Deleting- Printing” I’ve restarted, stopped and started spooler, and repeatedly cancelled print job. HELP!

  24. In opposition to what I just posted, I may have found the answer:
    Where rick said to use the command “net stop spooler”, it should be to
    (at the CMD prompt “net stop “print spooler””, and likewise for net start “print spooler” ….then
    the clog goes down the drain much easier.

  26. 9-28-2007 Thank you; I was convinced I was going to have to re-format my hard drive!!! This worked. God Bless you!

  29. excellent – thanks much!!! Can’t tell you how many times I rebooted out of frustration – reboot not an option today!

  30. hugs and kisses for saving my mind and investment. was seconds from throwing this printer out of a window!

  31. Blessings on you. I’ve argued this with many a printer (and not just HP, I might add). This time none of my “fixes” were working. Reboot? Nothing. Unplug the printer power cord. No help. Unplug the USB’. cable. Nuthin’. Had to do the start stop with the print spooler a couple of times and then refresh the print queue, but it worked!

  32. I have the same problem but none of the above clears the queue. The queue status is “processing.” The queue contents have no file name. The contents of the printer folder is empty. I even deleted the folder itself. Stopped and started the spooler, or print spooler, manually and via services. Thanks in advance.

  34. Thanks, man. Little late but thanks… well a lot. I was like beserk around here from my printer. To get the sense of what it was i will say that i’m using my new keyboard now. (Don’t worry about the old one, it was old anyway and i sent it for recicling)

  35. I’m having the same problem as JohnW above. The printer says “Processing” but nothing happens. I’ve tried all the fixes above, including the utility, but nothing works. I have 11 documents with unknown file formats (and the only other information is N/A for pages) in my print queue. Yesterday there were 4 documents in there and it’s been building ever since. When I try to cancel them, I get a message saying “Error processing command”. I wish any of these fixes would have worked. I’m at my wits end. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!!

  36. Wow! That’s amazing! My stupid broken print job persisted even when I restarted both the computer and the printer–but this fix worked like a charm!

  37. In case anyone has the same problem I did, and the fixes didn’t work….try unplugging your router. It was so simple I am still shaking my head at it. What appeared to be a problem with my printer or my computer didn’t end up that way. My router just got stuck and needed a reboot.

  38. I havent tried this tool yet but ill be trying it out later…. when the printer acts stupid again.

    For those who are interested to reboot but still not able to take out the “deleting print” in the spool; here is what i did…

    1. cancel the job in the spooler
    2. remove usb from back of your cpu
    3. restart pc, restart printer
    4. check the status of your printer in the “printer and faxes”. the status should be offline.
    5. double click the printer icon, if you still see the print job, cancel it again….
    6. attach usb back into the cpu… viola…

    been doing this for past few days. restarting cuts the crap out of me. i talked to 2 hp tech via online chat. so far… so good?

    thanks for the tool. i know it will come in handy.thanks more power

  39. wow the command prompt thingy worked a treat! now my printer prints again…. thanks so much

  42. Thanks so very much!!! I’m a teacher and was SOOOOOO upset because I couldn’t get the printer going, with so little time to get all my work done…with your advise it took NO TIME! Got the job done!
    Many blessings to you! AWESOME!!!

  43. OMG! That was the problem. I have a seriously outdated hp deskjet 3620 and it always does this, I normally have to wait a couple of days before it resets. Thanks so much.

  44. WOW, this thread started in 2004 and is still helping people in 2010! Yet HP’s help desk is still clueless. Thank you Brad. Your batch file is perfect for my English Professor wife who’s a bit technophobic, yet prints all the time. She never would have handled the command prompt routine.

  45. Thank you for this – you have just prevented me from hurling the printer into the parking lot.

  47. Thank you thank you thank you for this. I have tried just about everything and nothing works. I stumbled upon this post by accident and two days of searching and am so grateful for the help. This is the ONLY thing that works. Yay to you!

  49. Copy the following text into notepad and save the file as (anything you
    want).bat – To use it, just click on the Bat file.

    @echo off
    echo.
    echo Purging the print queue . . .
    net stop Spooler
    echo Deleting all print jobs . . .
    ping localhost -n 4 > nul
    del /q %SystemRoot%\system32\spool\printers\*.*
    net start Spooler
    echo Done!
    ping localhost -n 4 > nul

  50. Copy the following text into notepad and save the file as (anything you
    want).bat – To use it, just click on the Bat file.

    @echo off
    echo.
    echo Purging the print queue . . .
    net stop Spooler
    echo Deleting all print jobs . . .
    ping localhost -n 4 > nul
    del /q %SystemRoot%\system32\spool\printers\*.*
    net start Spooler
    echo Done!
    ping localhost -n 4 > nul

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