View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs)
View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs). Have you ever been frustrated that your printer is taking ages to print a simple document while nothing seems to be wrong with the printer?
If so, you are not the only one. All of us have faced these printing issues, as they are pretty common.
This particular issue occurs when your print job is stuck in the queue because it can’t be finished. Or maybe you have a massive print job that’s taking forever and doesn’t seem to be dropping off for some reason.
If your print queue isn’t clearing out its jobs automatically after a certain amount of time, you can view and clear print jobs to get it working again.
In this tutorial, we discuss various ways to view and clear print jobs from the queue to get the queue unstuck and get back to your printing operation.
Shall we start with View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs).
What is Print Queue
Firstly, when you print files, they are not sent directly to the printer in Windows. Then, they are placed first in the program that controls all print jobs, the print queue. The print queue is also known as the print spooler.
All in all, Print Queue is a software application for managing document and file printing. Well, the jobs in the print queue are held there until they are ready to be printed.
In nutshell, you can see and clear all of the open jobs in the print queue from your machine. Users have the option to cancel print jobs if they are no longer required or if the print job did not come out properly.
Why Do We Need to View and Delete the Print Queues
The following are a few causes of documents getting stuck during printing:
- The drivers for printers are outdated.
- By accident, “Pause” was the default setting for print tools.
- The file is excessively big and uses more memory than the printer can handle.
- When printing spec files, the printer doesn’t recognize them (fonts, graphics, etc.).
- Print queue issues.
But given the quality of usual documents and update protocols of Windows, the most usual cause for the printing failure is due to the printer queue being stuck or full. The print becoming stuck is one of these issues. Moreover, a print will not print if it becomes trapped.
Furthermore, it prevents printing on all of the remaining prints in the queue. Simply put, a blocked print in the queue stops the entire queue and prohibits the printing of more files.
So to get the printing operation going again, you should start by clearing the print queue.
Follow this post next to learn how to view and clear the print queue on Windows 10/11.
How to View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs)
View Print Queue Jobs
You can easily open and view the printers and their print queues using the control panel and settings application.
Using Settings Application
Go to the Start menu and open Settings. Select Bluetooth and devices in the left panel.
A). Navigate to Bluetooth and devices > Printers & scanners.
B). Select your printer and select the Open print queue option.
C).You will see the print queue with print jobs pop up in a new window.
Using Control Panel
Alternatively, you may also empty the print queue and cancel print tasks using the classic control panel.
Go to the Start menu and open the Control Panel. Select Hardware and Sound in the left panel.
1.Navigate to the Devices and Printers section.
2. Select and right-click on your printer, then select See what’s printing from the drop-down menu.
3. You will see the print queue with print jobs pop up in a new window.
Clear Print Queue Jobs
Using Settings App or Control Panel
Open the print queue either by using the Settings application or the Control Panel.
A). Right click on the print job you wish to clear and select the Cancel option from the drop-down menu.
B). You can also clear all printing jobs by right-clicking under the status column and selecting the Cancel All Documents option from the drop-down menu.
Remember, this method is not only for deleting the printing jobs, but it also helps you in prioritise printing jobs by putting a pause on the jobs that are not time sensitive. Also try to restart a certain job in case any error occurs instead of issuing the printing command again.
Using Command Prompt
Windows produces a print job each time you attempt to print a file and places it as a file in the Printers folder on the C drive. You may empty the print queue by removing each of those print job files.
To clarify, the print job files must first be deleted before you terminate the print spooler service, which is actively using the files. To point out, you may stop the Print Spooler service from the command prompt, empty the queue, and then restart the service all at once.
- Go to the start and search for the Command Prompt.
2. Right click on it and select the Run as administrator option.
3. Next, stop the print spooler service using the following command.
net stop spooler
4. After that, you can remove the print job files using the command below.
del /Q /F /S "%windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*"
5. Finally, restart the print spooler service again using the following command.
net start spooler
Using Window Services
What’s more, the print spooler services are manually stopped via the console, and the print job files are manually deleted if you don’t like or feel comfortable utilizing the command prompt approach.
Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box Type services.msc into the blank area and hit Enter. The Windows Services management console window will open as a result. Here, you manage several other services from here.
Locate the Print Spooler service by scrolling down. Right-click it now and choose the Stop option from the drop-down menu.
Do not close the Services Window and use the Win + R keyboard combination to reopen the Run dialog box. Enter the following string into the blank field.
%systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\
Click on Continue when prompted for administrator confirmation. The print jobs folder will open as a result.
Select and delete all files in the folder.
You have completed emptying the print queue once you have deleted these files.
Finally, right click the Print Spooler service in the Services window and choose Start to proceed. This will relaunch the print spooler service, allowing you to print your files.
That’s it. Once the print queue has been cleared, you may create a fresh print queue, and everything should go well when printing.
Thank you for reading View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs). We will conclude this article.
View Print Queue on Windows 10 / 11 (Clear Print Queue Jobs) Conclusion
With this in mind, you have learned how to view and clear the print queue on Windows 10 and 11, you do not need to contact your IT administrator when it acts up again and troubles you. You can apply these solutions to get yourself out of a bind.
Lastly, the Print Queue allows a user to control the printing of documents and files. Print the queue schedule and queued printing jobs until they can be printed.
You can also use Print Queue to queue print jobs that involve multiple pages or complex formatting, such as diagrams or images in PDFs.
Explore our printing section to learn more.
