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Windows: Clear Print Queue

Windows: Clear Print Queue

By Mitch Bartlett 14 Comments

If you have a long list of hung or corrupt print jobs in Microsoft Windows 10, 8, or 7, you can clear the print queue easily by using either of these methods.

Command Method

You can clear the print queue using commands like this.

  1. Select Start.
  2. Type Command.
  3. Right-click “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator“.
  4. Type net stop spooler then press “Enter“.
  5. Type del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q then press “Enter“.
  6. Type net start spooler then press “Enter“.
  7. The print queue on your Windows  should now be cleared. Type exit, then press “Enter” to exit the command window.

GUI Method

You can clear the print queue using this the Windows GUI.

  1. Hold down the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run dialog.
  2. Type services.msc, then press “Enter“.
  3. Find the “Print Spooler” service in the list. Right-click it, then select “Stop“.
  4. Leave the Services window open. Hold down the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run dialog.
  5. Type %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\, then press “Enter“.
  6. Select all of the files by holding “CTRL” and pressing “A“.
  7. Press the “Delete” key to delete all of the files.
  8. Go back to the Services window, right-click “Print Spooler“, then select “Start“

FAQ

Some files remain in the “printers” folder and will not allow me to delete them. How to I get rid of these?

Make sure the Print Spooler is stopped. If you’re sure it’s stopped, you might want to try opening a command prompt and running “chkfdsk /f /r” to run a check on the hard disk. Once complete, attempt to delete the file.

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Filed Under: Windows Tagged With: Windows 10

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. John R Janovich says

    December 30, 2020 at 2:50 pm

    Followed above steps and worked like a charm on Win 7

  2. Elaine Pruncutz says

    May 18, 2020 at 8:43 pm

    how do I sign on as “Administrator”?????

  3. Harmony Rose says

    April 14, 2020 at 5:21 pm

    Thank you so much – I’ve been trying to sort out these stuck print jobs for monrths now. This finally worked.

  4. Nanang Taten says

    January 23, 2020 at 6:36 pm

    Thanks the first step work folr met

    Thank you very much again.

  5. lafield says

    November 14, 2019 at 12:42 pm

    thank you for making this so very easy!

  6. Laurie Turnbull says

    September 20, 2019 at 10:04 am

    Thank you, the first method above worked for me on an old HP p1005 printer

  7. Sr. Betty Preston says

    August 3, 2019 at 9:28 am

    am new with this old printer HP 6600
    I do not understand nor can I find the COMMAND nor the WINDOWS KEY

  8. Mitch Bartlett says

    March 17, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    When followed properly, these steps should have absolutely nothing to do with causing missing DLL files or background information.

  9. Jesse Lockhart-Krause says

    March 14, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    This is VERY DANGEROUS!!!, after following these instruction a number of my programs are no longer working!!!!!, with missing .dll files.

    I just wanted to clear the print queue!!!, Not delete all of my background information.

  10. Mitch Bartlett says

    October 16, 2018 at 10:02 am

    That would probably be an admin rights issue.

  11. Ginger Tuttle says

    October 16, 2018 at 9:44 am

    This didn’t work even remotely for my computer. All I got was “Access is denied” with every step of the way. And it didn’t fix the issued of either duplicating print jobs or just not printing anything.

  12. RWild says

    June 5, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    Just dawned on me this is to clear the files in the queue. I’m want to delete the queues themselves. Sorry but the thing that pointed me here sounded like that was what this was about.

  13. RWild says

    June 5, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    Just tried this on Windows 8.1 and …\spool\PRINTERS directory is empty. View is set to show hidden files.

  14. Ray Tryhorn says

    December 12, 2016 at 10:03 am

    I have tried all of the above, the response I get is

    System error 1721 has occurred.

    Not enough resources are available to complete this operation.

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