Have you ever went through the situation where you try to print something and nothing happens? You wait for it to print, but it does not happen? There are millions of reasons why a print job may not actually print, but one of the common reasons is that the printer queue has a stuck print job. In this article, we are going to talk about How to Clear print Spooler in Windows – Tutorial. Let’s begin!
This can happen for many reasons. Let’s say that you tried to print something a few hours back, but the printer was off. You ended up not needing the document and then you forgot about it. And when you come back and try to print. The print job is added to the queue and if it did not remove the previous job automatically, then it will be behind that print job that never got printed.
Sometimes you can manually go in and remove the print job, but most of the time you just can’t get rid of it! In this type of case, you have to clear the print spooler manually. In this article, I will show you the steps to clear the print queue.
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Clear Print Queue in Windows
If you want to get the printing services back up and running, follow these steps:
- Go to Start, Control Panel, and then Administrative Tools. Now Double click on Services icon.
- Scroll down to the Print Spooler service and right-click on it and then select Stop. In order to do this, you need to log in as an Administrator. Now at this point, no one will be able to print anything on any of the printers that are being hosted on this server.
- Then, 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 in case the C drive is not the default Windows partition. Now delete all the files that are in this folder.
This will clear all print queues (If you are doing this on a server, it is a good idea to first make sure there are no other print jobs being processed for any of the other printers on the server. Because if you do this step will delete those jobs also).
- Now you can go back to the Services console and then right-click and select Start for the Print Spooler service!
Further | clear print spooler
Now, you should be able to print without a problem. If you prefer to use a script, that is. for a server, then you can also create a batch file with the commands below or just type them into the command prompt:
net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q /F /S
net start spooler
The first and third commands are really obvious: they stop and start the print spooler service. The middle command deletes every single thing in the printers folder and the /Q is for quiet mode. That means you won’t get a prompt asking if you want to remove each file. /F will force delete all then read-only files and /S will delete any subdirectories if those exist. Deleting content from this folder can never harm your computer, so do not need to worry if you see some files or folders and are not sure what they are for.
If you have a long long list of hung or corrupt print jobs in Microsoft Windows 10, 8, or 7. Then you can also clear the print queue easily by using either of these methods.
Command Method
You can clear the print spooler using commands like this.
- Click Start.
- Then type Command.
- Now right-click on the “Command Prompt” and then select “Run as administrator“.
- Type net stop spooler and then click “Enter“.
- Then type del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q then tap “Enter“.
- Type net start spooler then tap“Enter“.
- The print queue on your Windows should now clear. Type exit, then click “Enter” to exit the command window.
GUI Method
You can also clear the print spooler using this the Windows GUI.
- Hold down the Windows Key and then press “R” to bring up the Run dialog.
- Type services.msc, then click “Enter“.
- Now find the “Print Spooler” service in the list. Right-click it, then choose “Stop“.
- Then leave the Services window open. Hold down the Windows Key and click “R” to bring up the Run dialog.
- Type %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\, then tap “Enter“.
- Now select all of the files by holding “CTRL” and pressing “A“.
- Press the “Delete” key in order to delete all of the files.
- Now go back to the Services window, right-click “Print Spooler“, then select “Start“
Conclusion
Alright, That was all Folks! I hope you guys like this clear print spooler article and find it helpful to you. Give us your feedback on it. Also if you guys have further queries related to this article. Then let us know in the comments section below. We will get back to you shortly.
Have a Great Day!
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