How To Clear A Printer Queue

Windows 10 Clear Print Queue Via Services

Windows 10 – How to Clear the Printer Queue

How to clear printer queue via Services when the print job wont delete Windows 10? The steps are simple and just follow these instructions:

Step 1: Input services to the search box and click the exact result to open the Services window.

Step 2: Locate the Print Spooler service, double-click it and choose Stop.

Step 3: Open File Explorer, go to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS and you can see the documents that are currently in the printer queue.

Step 4: Choose all these files and delete them.

Step 5: Go back to the Print Spooler service window, double-click this service and choose Start to restart it.

Now, the issue of document stuck in print queue is solved.

Force Clear Printer Queue Using Preferences

This method is for those who are unable to find the Printer icon on the Dock.

Open the Apple menu and select System Preferences. Click on Printers.

Select the printer that has the entries you wish to cancel/clear and choose Open Print Queue.

Click the X icon next to each print job you wish to close.

Confirm that your print queue is cleared of the deleted entries and exit the Printer Utility.

To Delete A Print Job In Windows 10 Just Follow These Steps:

Go to Settings and select Printers.
Click on Open Queue and select the problematic file.
Cancel the print job.

If the printer still doesnt respond, go to the Printer Menu and cancel all documents. If theres still no result, the next step would be to restart your computer and the printer. Unplug all wire connections and plug them back before the system reboot is complete.

You have tried the simple fixes outlined above to no avail. Have no fear. This is a common issue. And there are easy ways to fix a print queue that isnt clearing in Windows 10.

Recommended Reading: How Do I Connect My Iphone To A Wireless Printer

Print Doesnt Print Cancel Doesnt Cancel

If the document being printed isnt listed, you cant cancel it. Many printers have very large buffers and have received several pages, or the entire document, before theyre done printing. This means the document might be removed from the Windows print queue well before all the pages are printed.

But this question is really about the opposite: what do you do when the printer should be printing, the print queue shows several documents ready to be printed, and yet nothings happening?

First, check all the usual stuff. Is the printer connected and powered on? Is the printer out of paper? Is it complaining about some other kind of fault? Is there a paper jam? There are a lot of things that can stop a printer from printing, and nine times out of ten, its one of those issues that gets in the way.

And yet, sometimes not.

You may be faced with this situation:

Your printer is confirmed ready to print.
You have documents in the print queue.
Nothing is printing, even though it looks like something should.
Attempting to cancel the current print job in the queue does nothing.
Even rebooting doesnt help.

The solution is to clear the print queue manually, removing all the documents waiting to be printed. This is done on the computer to which the printer is connected.

If your printing problem was related to a stuck printer queue, you should now be able to print again.

Fix : Clear The Print Queue Manually

How to Clear the Print Queue in Windows 10 Without Restarting

You have to manually disable the Print Spooler service and delete the files in the queue. The process is easy. Heres how to do it:

Switch the printer off.
In the window, click on the Stop button to disable Print Spooler.
Open File Explorer on Windows 10 task bar.
Go to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS. Youll find the folder that contains a log of documents on the print queue.
Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select all the files in the folder. Delete them.
Open the Printer Spooler dialogue box again. Click on the Start button to turn the Printer Spooler on.
Turn your printer on and try to print a file.

You May Like: Connect Iphone To Printer Wifi

How Do I Troubleshoot Print Jobs Stuck In The Queue

Use your Mac to troubleshoot spooled print jobs. On a Mac with macOS or later, use Diagnose and Repair in the HP Smart app to troubleshoot connectivity issues. Open the HP Smart app. If you don’t have an HP Smart, download it from the HP Smart Mac app store and follow the instructions to add a printer.

Fix : Use The Command Prompt To Clear The Print Queue

The fastest way to clear the print queue is through the command prompt. All you have to do is enter and run a few commands:

Turn off your printer.
Press Windows key + X.
In the Command Prompt window, type net stop spooler and hit enter on your keyboard. This will switch off the print spooler.
Type C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS and press the Return key. The printer job queue will now be erased.
Type net start spooler and press enter on your keyboard. This will switch the print spooler back on.
Turn on your printer and print a file.

You May Like: How To Collate

Clear And Restart The Print Spooler Manually

To clear and restart the print spooler manually, youll first need to stop the Print Spooler service. Click Start, type services, and then click the Services app.

In the right-hand pane of the Services window, find and double-click the Print Spooler service to open its properties window.

In the properties window, on the General tab, click the Stop button. Youll be restarting the service a bit later, so go ahead and leave this properties window open for now.

Fire up File Explorer and browse to the following locationor just copy and paste this text into your File Explorer address bar and hit Enter:

%windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS

Youll likely be asked to provide permission to access this folder. Go ahead and accept.

Delete the contents of the entire folder by pressing Ctrl+A and then the Delete key.

Now, return to that open properties window in the Services app and click Start to restart the Print Spooler service. Click OK to close the properties window and you can also go ahead and exit the Services app.

As soon as you restart the Print Spooler service, all the documents in your queue are immediately respooled and sent to the printer. If all goes well, they should start printing again right away.

Reset The Print System

How to Easily Clear the Printer Queue Windows 10

Resetting the print system can clear any error states by removing all HP and non-HP printers, pending print jobs, and printer preferences.

Resetting the print system removes all printers. After you reset the print system, re-add your printers to the queue.

Right-click or control+click anywhere in the Printers list, and then click Reset printing system.

Type the administrator name and password, and then click OK to complete the reset.

Once the reset is complete, re-add your printer. Click the Plus sign, select your printer in the list, and then click Add.

Read Also: How To Connect Printer To Imac

What Does It Mean When A Printer Is Spooling

Printer Spooling, short for Network Peripheral Operations, refers to the system on your computer that receives and monitors print jobs. Sometimes you may need to disable this system so that the spooler system does not send a command to your printer to print a document that you do not want to print.

Add printer to macHow do you connect a wireless printer to a Mac? Here are some steps to take to connect your HP wireless printer to your Mac: Step 1 : Connect the wireless printer to a power source, then press the power button to turn on the printer. Step 2 Now go to the Apple menu and select “Software Update”. Step 3 : Go to the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.How do you add a printer to a Mac computer?To add a network printer to

How Do You Recover A Deleted Printer

Reinstall the device. Users can also restore a deleted printer using the Add Printer options on the control panel. Since the printer software and driver are already installed on the system once, users can simply select the software from the list in the Add Printer menu and reinstall the printer on the system.

You May Like: Fashiontap Android

What Is A Print Queue And How Does It Work

You want the documents to be printed in sequence. Windows handles this by creating a so-called print queue. When an application prints a document, it places it in the document printing queue. Multiple programs can print to a queue at the same time, while Windows keeps track of which pages belong to which document.

What If My Printer Queue Wont Clear

How to Clear Printer Queue in Windows (with Pictures ...

If you often get files in the printer queue that wont print or clear, it may be a compatibility issue with the data to be printed. This is common when you try to print a web page with fonts or styles that your printer cannot identify or convert to printed text. The fixes outlined above should resolve the issue.

However, whatever the case may be, if youve tried the preliminary troubleshoots and all the three fixes as provided without result, you most likely have outdated printer drivers. Fortunately, you can fix this easily with Auslogics Driver Updater.

Resolve PC Issues with Driver Updater

Unstable PC performance is often caused by outdated or corrupt drivers. Auslogics Driver Updater diagnoses driver issues and lets you update old drivers all at once or one at a time to get your PC running smoother

Configuration issues can also cause a glitch in the print job queue for example, when you try to network print to a missing IP address. Uninstall and reinstall the printer software to fix it.

Another option is to run the Windows printer troubleshooter. This will fix any error that may be holding up your print jobs or give you information concerning the most likely causes.

We hope you find these solutions useful

Do leave a comment in the section below.

Recommended Reading: What Is The Wps Button On Printer

Use Hp Smart Diagnose & Fix

On a Mac running macOS 10.14 or later, use the Diagnose & Fix feature in the HP Smart app to help fix connection issues.

Open the HP Smart app. If you do not have HP Smart, download it from HP Smart – Mac App Store, and then follow the prompts to add your printer.

On the Diagnose & Fix screen, click Start.

Wait until the analysis completes. Do not close the app to avoid interrupting the process.

On the diagnosis screen, review the results, and then click Test Print or Done.

Delete Print Jobs From The Print Queue

Follow these steps:

To display the print job, click Display Print Queue.

To delete the print jobs, from the Printer menu, select Cancel All Documents.

When the confirmation message appears, click Yes.

If print items do not clear, you can try the manual process. After the print jobs are deleted manually, the printer spooler will need to be restarted. Please see steps below to manually delete print jobs and restart the spooler.

key on your keyboard and press R. This will open the Run box.

In the Run box, type services.msc. Then, click OK.

The Services window will open. In this window, scroll down to the Print Spooler. Right-click it and click Stop.

Minimize this window after the print spooler has stopped.

After the print spooler service has stopped, hold the Windows key on your keyboard and press R to open the Run box. In this box, type spool and click OK.

In the spool folder, open the PRINTERS folder.

Delete any files in this folder.

After these files have been deleted, close the spool folder.

Go back to the Services window. Right-click on the Print Spooler service and click Start.

Any print jobs that were queued will be deleted.

If your product issue was not resolved after following the steps above, or if you require additional help, please create or log in to your Canon Account to see your technical support options.

Recommended Reading: Mg3620 Scanner

How Can I Remove Printer In Windows 7

Follow these steps to remove the printer from Windows 7. Open the printers by clicking the Start button. Attachments are only available to registered users. Right-click the printer you want to delete and select Delete. If you cannot remove the printer, right-click again, select Run as administrator, and then click Remove.

How To Restart Print Spooler In Windows 10

Windows 10 – How to Clear the Printer Queue

Step 1 : Right-click the Start button and select Task Manager. You can also press the Ctrl + Shift + Esc shortcuts to quickly open the Task Manager.
Step 2 : Go to the “Services” tab.
Step 3 : Scroll down to find the Print Spooler service, right click and select Restart. Tip: If the print queue stops, the restart option is

What Is A Print Queue

Of course you may know about a print queue. Maybe a not-so-tech-savvy out there can benefit from this definition? A print queue is a list of printer jobs held in a reserved memory area. It maintains the most recent status of all the active and pending print jobs. You can pause, resume, cancel, and prioritize print jobs or change the order of the jobs.

There could be many reasons for print jobs to queue up: corrupted printer software, selected printer was off or there was no paper in the tray when the print command was issued etc. In such cases when you try to resume printing, by then all the print tasks queue up in the reserved memory. Most of the times you can manually delete the print jobs but sometimes it fails to clear the tasks. Consequently, you need to forcefully delete print tasks.

How To Forcefully Clear The Print Queue In Windows 10

Make sure to create a restore point just in case something goes wrong.

Method 1: Manually Clear Print Queue

1.Go to Start and search Control Panel.

2.From Control Panel, go to Administrative Tools.

3.Double click the Services option. Scroll down in the list to search for Print Spooler service.

4.Now right-click on Print Spooler service and select Stop. In order to perform this, you have to be logged in as Administrator-mode.

5.It is to be noted that, at this stage, no user of this system will be able to print anything on any of your printers which are connected to this server.

6.Next, what you have to do is, to visit the following path: C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

Alternatively, you can manually type %windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS in your system Explorers address bar when your C drive is not having the default Windows partition.

7.From that directory, delete all the existing files from that folder. This action of your will clear all print queue jobs from your list. In case you are performing this on a server, it is a better thought to first make certain no other print jobs are in the list for processing, in association with any printers because the above step will also delete those print jobs from the queue as well.

8.One last thing left, is to go back to the Services window and from there right-click the Print Spooler service & choose Start for starting the print spooling service back again.

Method 2: Clear Print Queue Using Command Prompt

Also Check: What Is A Wps Pin Number On A Printer

Clear Print Queue In Windows

In order to get the printing services back up and running, follow these steps:

1. Go to Start, Control Panel and Administrative Tools. Double click on Services icon.

2. Scroll down to the Print Spooler service and right click on it and select Stop. In order to do this, you need to be logged in as Administrator. At this point, no one will be able to print anything on any of the printers that are being hosted on this server.

3. Next you need to go to the following directory: C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRINTERS. You can also type %windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS into the address bar in Explorer if the C drive is not the default Windows partition. Delete all the files in this folder.

This will clear all print queues .

4. Now you can go back to the Services console and right-click and choose Start for the Print Spooler service!

At this point, you should be able to print without a problem. If you prefer to use a script, i.e. for a server, then you can create a batch file with the commands below or just type them into the command prompt:

net stop spooler

How Do You Flush Printer Queue Win 7

How to Cancel or Delete a Stuck Print Job in Windows

Windows 7: To clear the print queue: 1 Click the Start button. 2 Click All Programs and select Accessories. 3 Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. 4 Type the network shutdown spooler and press Enter. 5 Type del%systemroot%System32spoolprinters*/Q and press Enter. 6 Type Net Boot Spooler and press Enter.

Don’t Miss: How Do You Connect Your Phone To A Printer

Print Jobs Cannot Be Deleted: What Now

Were you unable to delete or cancel a print job? Were you even unable to remove the job from the print queue by restarting the system? Then, you may need to remove the print job manually using a Windows CMD command. Otherwise, these failed print jobs may block all further jobs. We will show you three quick and easy solutions for this problem.

Automatically Clear Print Queue With A Batch File

To ease your task for a similar situation in the future, you can create a batch file with the required commands to clear the print queue just by double-clicking the file.

To create a batch file, type the following commands in a Notepad file and save it with a .bat extension in a preferred location.