If you need to clear your entire print queue in Mac OS X for whatever reason, there is a simple terminal command you can type to do the job.
Simply:
- Launch Terminal
- Type cancel -a –
- Success!
All print jobs in the print queue should now be gone!
I have only tested this in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. I assume it will work in 10.4 Tiger as well.
awesome!!! Thanks!
Thank you.
It even cleared a queue that would delete jobs – but them magically put them back (jobs started from remote computers). Thanks.
Very cool. Got rid of a job stuck in “on hold” status that wouldn’t resume or delete.
Great! thanks a lot I had a couple of prints on hold and I couldn’t get rid of them.
Thanks again
Pierlucio
Bravo! I’ve had something stuck in my print queue for about 8 months. It wouldn’t delete at all. Luckily, this force delete of the queue did the trick! Thanks!
What a simple sloution! I’ve tried everything on osx, but it seems like I’d rather take this terminal thing more seriously… Thank you.
I had some jobs that were stuck and this worked! THANKS a lot! I also like how you have an old post reminder beneath this comment form. 🙂
Great hint! Thanks
Awesome got rid of my hung job in the que! Will be very useful in ARD in the future.
Thanks!!!
Wow. That was easy. Thanks!!
Thanks for the tip. Glad Google found you!
awesome!
my cpu was running at 99% because of a print job left in the queue. thanks for this
Awesome, thanks!
Thanks!
Works like MAGIC. I spent a month living with Canon printer job stuck in the queve. My MacBook battery life slid down to about 1 hour per charge and the cooling fan was working all the time, making noise like I was next to a highway! 🙁 I was ready to take the machine to Apple for repair and only accidently thought of a printer queve and a possibility of a bad printer driver causing this. Your solution was “Chris-sent”. 😉 Thank you.
Thanks! My mac (mbp, snow leopard) took 30 seconds to go to sleep because of a stuck printer job. I’ve just typed “cancel -a-” in the terminal and the problem was solved. Nice!
Print Jobs still stuck after running cancel -a-. Also tried cancel -a, cancel -a -. No luck. Am I missing something?
Worked like a charm, Thx heaps 😉
Yes it worked! Thanks a lot!
You beauty! Worked a treat.
Thanks! “cancel -a -” just took care of a job that wouldn’t stop requeuing itself on my Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.6) system!
Weird command but it did the job, thanks a lot.
Hey! Great! Not really… for someone who is just being introduced to these machines. Yes, we still exist; people who don’t need computers for everything they do.
I have no idea what you mean by “Launch Terminal”. Please remember us folks that don’t know where anything is yet… no we’re not stupid; MOST professions operated without computers a very short time ago, including doctors and lawyers and other supposed positions of intelligence.
To E
Go to finder
go to Applications folder
Scroll down to utilities folder
enter it
go to terminal
double click
wait for prompt
Type cancel -a-
Job done!
To original poster.
Thank you very much. Had an image stuck on hold for a long time.
How in God’s name did you find this solution?
If I recall correctly, I did some searches online and somehow stumbled across the right keywords to pull up this solution. I don’t remember what site it was, but whoever it was, thank you!
3 years after the original post and it worked like a charm. Thank you!
Thanks for the great tip!
I finally found the “cancel -a” reference.
http://www.unix.com/man-page/OSX/1/cancel/
Cheers – Mike
My brother’s Macbook pro was taking almost a full minute to go to sleep. I had read that someone had found that jobs in the print queue were causing this. I ran this for him and it took care of the problem.
Single best Terminal tip ever! Hats off to Chris and his life-saving insight. I searched for what seemed like an eternity and this was more helpful then I could ever imagined.
fantastic, works on snow leopard server to
had some jobs stuck in the print server
cancel -a – ….bam gone
thanks very much
Thanks a million
, it’s so easy