Printer Stuck in Queue and Not Printing: Fix
Three escalating levels — cancel from the queue, restart the Print Spooler service, force-clear it by command — plus the driver angle for when the same jam keeps coming back.
You send a document to print and it stays "in queue" without ever coming out — it neither prints nor lets you cancel it normally. The print queue is, literally, a waiting list: every document you send to print enters it and comes out in order. The problem you are experiencing is that this list has jammed.
Level 1: cancel from the queue itself
Search for "Printers & scanners" in Windows, select your printer → "Open queue" → right-click each stuck document → "Cancel". If this clears the queue, you are done — no need to go further.
Level 2: restart the Print Spooler service
If cancelling does not work (the document stays stuck "cancelling" without disappearing), the service that manages the queue itself needs restarting:
- Press
Windows + R, typeservices.msc, Enter. - Look for "Print Spooler".
- Right-click → "Restart".
Level 3: force a clean-up via commands
If level 2 does not fully solve it either, this command stops the service, deletes the stuck files and starts it again, all at once:
net stop spooler
del /q /f %systemroot%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\*
net start spooler
Warning: run this command from Command Prompt as administrator. It deletes all pending print jobs (yours and those of any other user on the machine if it is shared) — it does not delete any personal file, only print jobs waiting in queue.
If the problem repeats often
It may be the printer's driver, not the queue itself. Device Manager → look for your printer → right-click → "Update driver". If the printer is old and no longer receives updates from the manufacturer, uninstalling and reinstalling the driver from scratch usually helps more than updating it.
Tip: if you have to restart the print queue often, check in the printer's advanced properties that "Start printing immediately" is selected instead of "wait until the last page is spooled" — this second option is more prone to jams.
Frequently asked questions
Is the problem the printer or Windows?
In most cases it is a problem with the Windows service that manages the queue (the Spooler), not the physical printer itself — that is why restarting this service fixes the problem so often.
Do I have to reinstall the entire printer?
Not as a first step. Reinstalling the driver (without physically removing the printer) is usually enough; it only becomes necessary to remove and re-add the printer if the problem persists after trying the 3 levels in this guide.
Why does it work sometimes and get stuck other times?
It usually depends on which type of document you are printing (some formats generate heavier or malformed jobs for the spooler) or whether the computer went into sleep mode with a job half-pending.