How do I clear a Print-queue in Ubuntu?

Question

I am an absolute beginner with Ubuntu and I appear to have a long queue of documents in my H.P. 840C printer.

score 131 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

131

The question was how to kill all jobs. The simple way to kill all jobs:

lprm -

The complicated linux old-school way is below:

Command line:

lpstat -o

to view outstanding print jobs.

cancel -a {printer}

to cancel ALL jobs or ...

cancel {printerjobid}

to cancel 1 job.

edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Community

answered Sep 26 '13 at 13:36

Rinzwind

MAGIC : ) Guys who aren't having success, step 2 above? The readout from lpstat -o should look something like <yourusername_printername>. Just type that verbatim into {printer} in step 2. Worked fine in Ubuntu 15.04. Tnx Rinzwind :) – Manuel Dec 05 '15 at 06:46
Funny, this works very well, but not when using gnome-printers gui. Too bad! – Gerhard Stein Oct 31 '16 at 06:57
@Gerstrong do you get a notice? Cuz this is totally outside of gnome-printers scope. Commandline always wins here ;) – Rinzwind Oct 31 '16 at 07:37
No, notice at all, no reaction. The jobs stays there. Command Line in contrast removes it. – Gerhard Stein Oct 31 '16 at 17:48
Likely you need sudo from the gui. – Rinzwind Oct 31 '16 at 17:49

score 25 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 26 '13 at 13:35

25

Either

Use the printer dialog: type "Printers" in the dash and navigate to the printer
Use the CUPS web interface: point your browser at http://localhost:631/jobs/ and proceed from there
Use the command line interface: use lpq to see jobs, lprm to remove. Refer to man lprm for more information.

answered Sep 26 '13 at 13:35

zwets

Is there something like lprm * that will cancel all jobs? Or do we have to go piecemeal? – MichaelChirico Apr 30 '15 at 03:15
@MichaelChirico man lprm | grep "cancel all jobs" – zwets Feb 12 '16 at 08:16

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 12 '15 at 16:11

18

Use

lpstat -W completed -o

to view list of completed jobs.
Use

lpstat -o

to view list of not-completed jobs.

And to delete job list,just use this command:

cancel -a -x

This will cancel all pending jobs, as well as deleting them.

answered Sep 12 '15 at 16:11

PHP Learner

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 30 '14 at 11:18

2

Well, answers given here didn't work for me so here's what I did -

ps aux | grep printer
kill {printer job}

answered May 30 '14 at 11:18

some_other_guy

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 06 '22 at 08:40

I tried using lpstat and lprm but was unable to figure out basic things like the job number and stuff. Instead, I used the command:

lpq

This produced:

zac@computer:~$ lpq
lpq: Error - no default destination available.

A quick Internet search and then I tried:

zac@computer:~$ lpq -a
Rank    Owner   Job     File(s)                     Total Size
1st     zac     85      TorahNT.odt                 59392 bytes

FINALLY I find the all important Job number: 85!

NOW I run lprm:

zac@computer:~$ lprm 85
zac@computer:~$

And to confirm I did this:

zac@computer:~$ lpq -a
no entries
zac@computer:~$

Finally, the printer queue is empty.

Really nice clear answer - very helpful for people unfamiliar with the commands, thanks! — Zanna, Apr 06 '22 at 08:41

5 Answers5