Print Spooler Keeps Stopping — How to Fix It Permanently

The Print Spooler is a Windows service that manages the queue of documents waiting to be printed. When it crashes or stops, nothing prints until you restart it — and if corrupted print jobs are stuck in the queue, it will keep crashing.

Quick Fix: Restart the Spooler

Press Win + R, type services.msc, and press Enter. Scroll down to Print Spooler. If it shows Stopped, right-click it and choose Start. If it's already running, choose Restart. This gets you printing again right now, but it won't prevent future crashes if there's a corrupted job.

Permanently Fix It: Clear the Spool Folder

The most common cause of repeated crashes is a corrupted print job stuck in the spool folder. Here's how to clear it:

1. In services.msc, right-click Print Spooler and choose Stop.
2. Press Win + R, type %systemroot%\System32\spool\PRINTERS and press Enter. This opens the spool folder.
3. Delete every file inside this folder. Do not delete the folder itself — only the contents.
4. Go back to services.msc and Start the Print Spooler again.

Set the Spooler to Auto-Restart on Failure

To make the service restart itself if it crashes:

1. In services.msc, double-click Print Spooler.
2. Go to the Recovery tab.
3. Set First failure and Second failure to Restart the Service.
4. Click Apply, then OK.

Check for Corrupted Drivers

A faulty printer driver can crash the spooler repeatedly. If the problem continues after clearing the spool folder, remove and reinstall your printer driver. See our guide on fixing the "Printer driver is unavailable" error for detailed steps.

Run the Printer Troubleshooter

Go to Settings > System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters, then click Run next to Printer. Windows will scan for spooler issues and attempt automatic fixes.

If none of these resolve the repeated crashes, ask us — a corrupted system file may be to blame.