How to Check Current Print Jobs in the Windows 11 Queue

Using the Settings App to View Print Jobs

The Settings ⚙️ app is the quickest route. You open your device list, pick your printer, and open its queue. The queue window shows each document with its status, owner, size and number of pages, so you can see right away what is holding up the printer.

1. Press the Win+I to open Settings.

   

2. Select Bluetooth 🔷 & devices from the left-hand menu.

   

3. Click Printers & scanners. You should see a list of every printer and scanner installed on the computer.

   

4. Click the printer whose queue you want to inspect. Its settings page opens.
5. Click Open print queue near the top of the page. A separate window opens listing every active document waiting to print.

   

If your printer is not in the list, it is not installed on this PC, so there is no queue to open. Check that it is powered on and connected, or add it with the Add device button on the same page. A job that shows a status such as Error or Paused is usually the one blocking everything behind it.

Using the Control Panel for Detailed Queue Management

The classic Control Panel 🎛️ is useful if you prefer the older layout or cannot find the printer in Settings. It leads to the same queue window, just by a different route.

1. Open the Start menu, type Control Panel, and press Enter. Control Panel 🎛️ opens.
2. Under the Hardware and Sound category, click View devices and printers.
3. Find your printer in the list of hardware. Printers are usually grouped under a Printers heading.
4. Right-click the printer icon and select See what’s printing from the context menu 🖱️. The active queue window opens.

If Control Panel 🎛️ opens in Category view, you will see the Hardware and Sound heading. In the icon views you will see Devices and Printers directly instead, and you can open it from there.

Managing and Canceling Stuck Print Jobs

Most of the time you only need to cancel the one job that is stuck. If that does not work, restart the 🔄 Print Spooler service and clear its temporary files.

Cancel a single job

1. Open the print queue using either method above.
2. Right-click the frozen document and select Cancel.
3. If Windows asks you to confirm, click Yes. The document should disappear from the list, and the next job in line starts printing.

Cancelling can take a few seconds. If a job stays on Deleting and will not go away, the queue is frozen and you need the steps below.

When the whole queue is frozen and will not clear through the normal window, restart the Print Spooler service manually. This requires administrator privileges, so you may be asked to confirm with an administrator account or password.

1. Open the Start menu, type Services, and press Enter. The Services window opens.
2. Scroll down the list of system services to find Print Spooler.
3. Right-click Print Spooler and select Stop. The Status column should no longer show Running.
4. Open File Explorer and go to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS. Delete the files inside that folder, which are the temporary print files stuck in the directory. Leave the folder itself in place. If Windows asks for administrator permission, click Continue.
5. Return to the Services window, right-click Print Spooler, and select Start. The status returns to Running and normal printing can resume.

There is nothing to undo in the service itself. If you stopped it by mistake, just start it again the same way.

What to do next

If clearing individual jobs does not restore your printer's responsiveness, try the following in order:

1. Restart the physical printer. Turn it off, wait about ten seconds, and turn it back on.
2. Remove and re-add the device in Printers & scanners. Select the printer, choose Remove, then use Add device to install it again.

Before you remove the printer, check that the queue is empty. Also check that the printer's status in the queue window does not say Offline. An offline printer is often a connection problem, not a stuck job.