How-To

Accidentally Hit Print? You Can Pause or Cancel Print Jobs in Windows 11

By Brian Burgess

Published June 25, 2024

Uh oh. Did you accidentally send a document to a printer? Luckily you can pause or cancel print jobs in Windows 11. Here’s how.

Have you ever been creating a document and accidentally hit the option to print it out? Maybe it is sensitive info, and you don’t want others reading it. Or, simply put, it might be something private. Luckily, Windows 11 allows you to pause or cancel print jobs.

For instance, you might not be printing anything private at all, but you don’t want to waste ink and paper when the document isn’t ready.

Whatever the reason for stopping a print job, we’ll show you how to do it from different locations within Windows 11. You can use the best option since some steps work better depending on your workflow.

Pause a Print Job on Windows 11 from Settings

Using the following steps, one of the more straightforward places to pause a print job is from the Settings app in Windows 11.

1. Press the Windows key + I to open Settings directly.
2. Once the Settings app opens, select Bluetooth & devices from the column on the left.
3. Scroll down in the right section and click Printers & scanners.
4. Select the printer you sent the job to from the list. If you don’t see it, you may need to add or rename the printer for it to display.
5. Expand the Additional printer settings menu and click the Pause button.

That’s all there is to it. The print job will be paused until you hit the Pause button again to resume printing. It’s also important to mention that while the Settings app gives you access to print settings, it doesn’t include a dedicated button to cancel a print job. So, you might want to use one of the following options instead.

Use Print Management Utility to Pause or Cancel Print Jobs

Another place you might want to look to pause or cancel a print job is the Print Management app. You might be familiar with it since it’s also available in Windows 10. While you can hunt for Print Management from the Control Panel, we’ll show you a more direct route for opening it.

1. Press the Windows key, type Print Management, and select the utility from the best match section at the top.
2. Once it opens, select All Printers from the left panel.
3. Right-click your printer and click the Pause Printing option from the menu that appears.
4. It’s also worth noting that you can resume and cancel all print jobs from the Print Management utility. Right-click the printer and select Resume Printing, Cancel Printing, or Cancel All Jobs.

How Do I Cancel Print Jobs in Windows 11?

In addition to using the Print Management utility or Settings app, you can use the Print Queue at the bottom of your screen to pause or cancel print jobs.

1. Right-click the Print Queue button on the Taskbar and select Open All Active Printers.
2. When the Print Queue window opens, right-click the job and select Pause, Cancel, or Restart based on what you need to do.
3. If you have several jobs about to print, click the three-dot button in the top right corner and choose Pause All, Resume All, or Cancel All.

Pause or Cancel Print Jobs in Windows 11

Like most things in Windows, there are multiple ways to pause, cancel, or resume print jobs. Choose the one that works best for your workflow.

Another thing to note is that sometimes you can’t cancel a print job because it’s simply too late. But you still have an option if the job is already in the print queue. However, it’s a bit involved.

You can try to reset the Print Spooler service from services.msc. Stop the service, manually delete the queue files, and restart the service so everything works correctly the next time you want to print. But if you act quickly, it shouldn’t come to that, and you can use the options shown above to pause or cancel print jobs.