Have you ever run into the situation where you try to print something and nothing happens? You wait for it to print, but the job doesn’t go through? There are a ton of reasons why a print job may not actually print, but one of the common causes is that the printer queue has a stuck print job.
This can happen for a number of reasons. Let’s say you tried to print something a few hours back, but the printer was off. You ended up not needing the document and you forgot about it. Then you come back and try to print. The print job is added to the queue and if the previous job didn’t get removed automatically, it will be behind that print job that never got printed.
Sometimes you can manually go in and delete the print job, but sometimes you just can’t get rid of it! In this type of case, you have to clear the print queue manually. In this article, I’ll show you the steps to clear the print queue.
Everyone should know how to clear the print queue in Windows when all the jobs get “stuck” and none of the jobs can be deleted. This will save you from having to restart a server (which is bad!).
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. Delete all the files in this folder. This will clear all print queues (it’s a good idea to first make sure there are no other print jobs being processed on any of the other printers on the server because doing this step will delete those jobs also).
4. Now you can go back to the Services console and right-click and choose Start for the Print Spooler service!
You can also go to a command prompt and type net stop spooler or net start spooler to start and stop the service. Enjoy!
Thanks for this! Exactly what I was looking for after a Google search!
This is great, but is there a way to create a script that can be run from a user's workstation to clear the queue on a remote server without having to log into that server? That's what I'm looking for!
Just what I was looking for. Our 2000 server has print server devices, and queues get stuck. Administering via terminal service no problem.
Here is a simple script i know of. Just save that as a .BAT file from notepad after modifying it to your machine. Just modify the path to your print spool, save and run it.
net stop spooler
del /f C:WindowsSystem32spoolprinters*.*
net start spooler
Thanks, I needed that path. I knew there was someplace like that out there but couldn't remember it. Unfortunately, I can't delete anything in there. The two files say they're in use when I try to delete them. Probably by the darn print queue.
Thanks for the solution! Printers are all printing again!
Thank you, Computer Guy, for the tip, and thank you, Rick, for the *.bat file. Just what I need. There is now always a queue of pending jobs that have already been printed — usually by my Adobe PDF printer. I can always delete them all if I do it when there are only 5 recent jobs or so, but last night (July 21) I tried to delete about 10. The one from July 9 refused to go away. Only 8 bytes, but it stayed and stayed and stayed!
Hi,
We had print server installed on our network and some of the print queues are getting stuck on some printers. Due to this, users are not able print from these printers. If we stop the spooler service on print server other printers will be affected. Here is my question: how to delete the queues on affected printer without disturbing other printers?
Thanks
just saved me a 6hr wait for the help desk, thanks!
Worked like a charm. Thanks!
Hi there thanks for the tips, but we have over 30 printers connected and we cannot afford to 'stop print spooler service', which would cause other printer to stop printing.
Is there any other way to clear the jobs from the print queue, without stopping the service?
Many thanks,
Saroj
Oxford
Exactly what I needed. Thank you for the simple solution. Printers are back up and running!
Wow, that worked great and it was badly needed. Thank you for the instructions. We are up and running once again!
Worked perfect, but I still had to go back and clear the queue one last time. You may want to add that to the write-up.
Really great! I was tired of restarting the print server all the time.
BIG thanks!
You're a hero – thanks! My print queue is no longer jammed up! Added to my favourites!
I've tried this several times over the past year. Maybe because I have Vista, I am left with 2 Shockwave files in the printers folder that won't delete. Can anyone advise how to delete these two files – until then, the print spooler remains locked up. Thanks!
Found the solution from another Vista user online for Vista Home Premium Users:
If you are on Vista Home Premium, go through the following steps to clear "deleted" print jobs from the print queue.
1) Go to Control Panel
2) Select System and Maintenance
3) Select Administrative Tools
4) Double-click on Services
5) In the list of services, scroll down until you find one called "Print Spooler"
6) Right-click on "Print Spooler" and select "Restart"
7) The "deleted" jobs will disappear and any queued jobs in your print queue will print
My printer did spit out two blank sheets of paper – but it DID work.
Wonderful, Kalyhan. This has saved us novices much grief. Thank you
Hi… I faced a very strange situation yesterday. I clicked on print spooler and stopped the service. Then I cleared all the pending jobs and then started the print spooler again. But to my surprise now the printers have also got deleted (the one which we see from printers and faxes in control panel). Could you please explain what could be the reason for the same and how to rectify it?
Que tal.
yo tengo un problema similar, desconectamos una impresora hp de la red, pero la conectamos dias despues y tiene una cola de impresion muy grande al conectarla comienza a imprimir, y no se como cancelar esos trabajos. alguien me podria ayudar? tengo privilegios de administrador pero no tengo acceso al servidor.
Totally does what it says on the label. Just wish I'd thought of this site 2 hours ago!
Thank you for posting this! For someone who doesn't muck around much in the Administrative tools part of the computer much, each step was clear and easy to follow.
Thank you for the clear and easy to follow instructions. It worked perfectly.
Hello. This guide helped – thank you! however, I see the gentleman above tried to give us an easy way to make a batch file to do this process automatically… but its a little wrong. I thought a step-by-step would help out a little…
1. Create a new Notepad Document.
2. Copy & Paste this into that document:
net stop spooler
del /f C:WindowsSystem32spoolprinters*.*
net start spooler
3. Goto 'File', 'Save As', then choose where you want to save the file and save it as "Clear Print Que.bat" (without quotes).
4. Close Notepad and you're done!
Now, to use this in the future, just run the .bat file, during which it will ask you if you're sure you want to continue, hit the 'y' key and press enter to finish up the operation.
Note: the man above didnt have this line right in his original post:
"del /f C:WindowsSystem32spoolprinters*.*"
should have been:
"del /f C:WindowsSystem32spoolprinters*.*"
-notice the backslash, "", in between C: and Windows in the corrected version.
This worked well on Windows 7, using HP Officejet Pro 8500A with HP Deskjet 9800 driver. Thanks!