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Jan 15 2008

How to delete or cancel hung print jobs in Windows


Filed under: Operating Systems » Windows,
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Print jobs clogging up your queue?

It's easy enough to cancel a print job in the queue - you simply right-click it and select "cancel," after which the print job status commences to display "deleting..."  After which you normally expect the print job to cancel and disappear so you can resume printing, correct?  Unfortunately, often the print job will hang and prevent you from continuing to print anew from that same printer.  We're going to show you how to forcefully delete these pesky print jobs.

How to force delete print jobs

Fortunately, there is a way to delete the hung print job without having to save all your work, close all your applications, and restart your computer.  Here's how (note that this is intended for Windows XP systems, but a similar approach works on other systems - if this doesn't work for you reply below with your Operating System and version):

  • Browse to Start -> Run... and type in "NET STOP SPOOLER" (this will stop the print spooler service)
  • Browse to your windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\ folder
  • You should see files there ending in .SPL and .SHD created around the time you tried to print - delete these files.
  • Browse to Start -> Run... and type in "NET START SPOOLER" (this will restart the print spooler service)
  • Double click the printer icon in the lower-right corner of your taskbar to examine your print job queue and browse to View -> Refresh.

Voila :)  You should see that annoying hung print job finally disappear completely and you should now be able to resume printing without having to restart your computer.

But what if you didn't even have to mess with the print spool in the first place?

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Average: 4.8 (54 votes)
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May I...?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sun, 2008-05-04 20:37.

May I scream GRRRRREATTTTT! Years having to cope with this problem. Thanks a lot!

thank you so much

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2008-06-26 09:45.

i've been wanting to do this for years

AWESOME! THIS HELPED ME OUT

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2008-07-19 15:59.

AWESOME! THIS HELPED ME OUT A LOT!!!

How to delete or cancel hung print jobs in Windows

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2008-07-30 04:50.

I tried the remedy steps you outlined, unfortunatels the on browsing to the folder windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\, I found it empty. I decided to continue but did not achieve success, please help me I am humiliated each time others fail to print their agent documents. My e-mail address is tmudavanhu at gmail dot com.

Show hidden files

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2008-09-30 07:44.

Make sure you can see hidden files. Tools>Folder options-> View Tab : Hidden Files and folder = Show.

Does not apply to large printing environments

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2008-09-25 22:37.

This solution won't work in large printing environments as restarting the print spooler services will potentially affect hundred or thousands of users....

Is there any other better solution that doesn't rely on restarting the print spooler services?? Especially for large printing environments!

Hundreds printing to same machine

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2008-11-01 11:11.

If you have hundreds to thousands of users printing to the same machine at the same time then you have other issues.

Give me a break

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2008-11-01 11:09.

Hundreds or thousands of users printing to the same machine at once? Give me a break...

Helpful article

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2008-11-10 17:41.

This was a helpful article.

Thank you so much!

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2008-11-12 13:27.

This fixed the annoying "phantom" documents that kept trying to print! Thank you so much for your article!

THANK YOU!

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2008-12-12 10:20.

Thank you very much! I have looked for a way to do this for years!

Thanks, I am so happy !!!

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2009-03-14 05:03.

This just helped me a ton - thanks so much for the tip. What a pain to have a print queue that gets clogged and the only intuitive solution being to restart your whole system.

Quiz: Why can't MS put out a user friendly version of Windows? It simply can't. The solution? Linux baby.

Not working here

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2009-03-24 10:13.

My spool/printers folder is also empty. I always have hidden files showing, so that is not the problem. I even made up the little DeletePrintJobs.cmd program that MS suggests and it cannot find any files in the spool/printers folder.

What's next? Restarted computer and shut off printer. This is a networked printer.

Empty Printer Folder

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2009-07-23 11:22.

Did you ever get a fix for this problem? I stopped the spooler, but my printer folder was also empty. All hidden files are shown.

Printing Works Again!

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2009-04-15 11:04.

I tried and it worked. Here is the setup:

1. I started the print job.
2. Half way trough the job the paper was gone.
3. Added more paper, tried to continue, but had a stalled print job.
4. Stopped spooler. The folder was Empty. Started spooler.
5. Opened the printer control and the job list was empty!
6. However the tray icon was showing 1 pending print job (in the bubble).
7. Right-clicked the icon and selected "Refresh".
8. The icon was gone from the tray. But the most important thing is that I was able to print again.

Easier Way

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2009-07-22 10:14.

Download Unlocker, and you don't even have to cancel the spool service.

It worked

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2009-08-12 08:52.

Thank you for this useful information. I'm going to bookmark this page.

Thanks, Lindylex

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2009-10-23 12:41.

Thanks, Lindylex

wow

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2009-10-27 08:28.

All my life since I was child I had this problem. OMG this is a miracle. God Bless and love.

Thank you very much

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2009-10-31 02:57.

Really cancellation of pending printing jobs is very laborious work that it needs to restart and an excellent solution is given here. Really thank you very much.

Neeraj D. Sharma - India

Thanks

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Wed, 2009-11-04 23:19.

Thanks, immensely. Can't they fix the issue, using some program. I have wasted so many hours, had to many a times abandon the task and get it done elsewhere.

Thanks again
Frank Michaels

Thanks!

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2009-12-29 23:07.

Thanks for posting this. Very helpful!!

Thanks - worked like a charm

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sun, 2010-01-10 21:07.

Thanks for putting this information out for everyone to use.

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sun, 2010-01-10 23:19.

Thanks for posting. It worked!

And Yet More Gratitude

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2010-03-06 10:37.

Much, much frustration finally gone! Thank you yet again. Ron

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