Disable CUPS job history and remove job files

Mar 22, '07 07:30:01AM

Contributed by: Hulot

I was always wondering why the completed jobs are shown in CUPS -- you can't restart them (you'll get an error message if you click the Restart Job button), and they take up drive space. For a private user, the job history is also useless -- your privacy is kept without it. Here's how to keep the list clean.

  1. Modify cupsd.conf. In an admin account, navigate to /private » etc » cups (use Go » Go to Folder from the Finder menu if you want), make a copy of cupsd.conf and rename it to cupsd.conf_default. Open cupsd.conf in TextWrangler or your editor of choice. Edit these lines as shown:

    #PreserveJobHistory Yes » PreserveJobHistory No
    #PreserveJobFiles No » PreserveJobFiles No

    Save the file, quit the editor.
  2. Delete old printed job files. Log in to root account. WARNING! Think twice, don't rush. Navigate to /var/spool/cups delete all the files except the /tmp folder.
  3. Check CUPS again. Restart with connected and powered printer. Open your browser and open the CUPS interface. Click Manage Jobs, then click Show Completed Jobs. Print anything and check again.
[robg adds: To delete the job files, you can start a root shell (sudo -s) as opposed to actually logging in as root. Please be careful with deletion in this mode; you really can do Bad Things in a hurry (have you backed up lately?).]

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