Windows: Clear Print Queue

There are times whenever you print you get into trouble and experience some printing jobs that become or are corrupted and there are even times when your printer hangs. We understand how frustrating this could be especially when you are in a rush or do not know to handle or solve the situation. Do not worry as through this article, we shall provide you useful information and a step by step guide which you could follow in order to solve your printing problems and clear your print queue easily. However, take in mind that in this article, we shall focus on Microsoft Windows 10, 8 and 7.

How to clear your print queue on Windows 7, 8 and 10?

Method 1 – Command Method

This method could help you clear your print queue using the following steps and commands:

• Select Start
• Type and enter Command
• Select run as administrator
• Type net stop spooler 
• Press enter
• Type del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q
• Press enter
• Type net start spooler 
• Press Enter 
• The queue on your windows should now be cleared
• Once, the issue has been resolved, press Enter. This will exit your command window. 

Method 2- GUI Method 

This method allows you to clear your print queue through the use of Windows GUI. 

• Hold the Windows Key at the same time press the letter R. This will show you the Run dialog.
• Type services.msc 
• Press Enter
• Look and find the Print Spooler service in the list. 
• Right-click 
• Select Stop 
• Leave services window open
• Hold down Windows Key and press R. This will bring back the run dialog back. 
• Type %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\
• Press Enter
• Select the files. This could be done by holding CTRL and A simultaneously. 
• Press Delete key to delete all the files
• Go back to Services window
• Right click Print Spooler 
• Select Start
• Your print queue should now be cleared and you could now work on your printing jobs again without any problems about your printing jobs hanging and being corrupted.

FAQ

Some files remain in the “printers” folder and does not allow me to delete them. How do I solve this and how do I get rid of them?

To solve this issue, all you need to do is to ensure that the Print Spooler is stopped. Once that you are sure that it has already been stopped, you will have to try and open a command prompt and run “chkfdsk/f/r”. This will run a check on your hard disk. Once this process has been complete. Try and attempt again to delete the file. 

Conclusion:

This concludes our article on how to clear print queue on Windows. We hope that through this article, we were able to provide you useful information and guide on how to clear your print queues as we fully understand how frustrating and annoying it could get whenever your printing jobs hang or get corrupted. Hence, through this step by step guide which was provided above, we hope we were able to help you with your printing issues.