1385

How can I remove the current process/application which is already assigned to a port?

For example: localhost:8080

4
  • 191
    npx kill-port 8080 Commented Oct 15, 2020 at 19:22
  • 8
    apparently, npx kill-port is either not working at all or can't kill processes that have elevated privileges, for Windows 10. Commented Jun 28, 2021 at 2:53
  • 2
    @Pavindu just tested it works on Windows Server 2016 without no problems, even when the task is running with elevated priviledges. Commented Jan 19, 2022 at 15:44
  • 1
    I got this working for myself lsof -i :3000 | awk '/[1-9]/ {print $2}' | xargs kill -9 there is probably an easier way to do it Commented Jul 29, 2023 at 18:50

28 Answers 28

2867

Step 1:

Open up cmd.exe (note: you may need to run it as an administrator, but this isn't always necessary), then run the below command:

netstat -ano | findstr :<PORT>

(Replace <PORT> with the port number you want, but keep the colon)

The area circled in red shows the PID (process identifier). Locate the PID of the process that's using the port you want.

Step 2:

Next, run the following command:

taskkill /PID <PID> /F

(No colon this time)

Lastly, you can check whether the operation succeeded or not by re-running the command in "Step 1". If it was successful you shouldn't see any more search results for that port number.

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

18 Comments

I had to enter escape characters when running taskkill: taskkill //PID 12552 //F
accepted answer will not work for services which are set up to restart on failure (this is not linux)
I got processId 0 on port 80. If I try to kill it I get "ERROR: The process with PID 0 could not be terminated. Reason: This is critical system process. Taskkill cannot end this process."
2020-04-03, Windows10, Python 3.6.6, using Git Bash: confirming that using the double forward slash worked for me as well. I needed to kill a Flask app process on localhost:5000 that didn't terminate. e.g. taskkill //F //PID 16660 .
You can also use "-" instead of "/". You don't have to escape the slashes and for me "-" is more intuitive
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607

I know that is really old question, but found pretty easy to remember, fast command to kill apps that are using port.

Requirements: [email protected]^ version

npx kill-port 8080 

You can also read more about kill-port here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/kill-port

4 Comments

I can't believe I didn't know about this, so useful thank you!
I can't believe I never scrolled down to see this... I have come to this SO page so many times when I forget the bash command... This is so much easier to remember
this doesn't work
@Piliponful, you need npm installed, its a node.js package manager
230

There are two ways to kill the processes

Option 01 - Simplest and easiest

Requirement : [email protected]^ version

Open the Command prompt as Administrator and give the following command with the port (Here the port is 8080)

npx kill-port 8080 

Option 02 - Most commonly used

  • Step 01

    Open Windows command prompt as Administrator
  • Step 02

    Find the PID of the port you want to kill with the below command: Here port is 8080
netstat -ano|findstr "PID :8080" 

TCP 0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 18264

  • Step 03

    Kill the PID you received above with the below command (In my case PID is 18264)
taskkill /PID 18264 /f 

2 Comments

Option 1 is the best answer in the world. I'm wondering why isn't this the first choice.
Lol never considered using npm! It's always installed somewhere and it went as easy as it looks. Gonna take note of this. Thanks!
221

With Windows 10/11 default tools:

✔ Step one:

Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator

✔ Step two:

Find the ProcessID for the port you need to kill (e.g. 3000)

netstat -aon | findstr 3000 

TCP 0.0.0.0:3000 LISTEN 1234

✔ Step three:

Kill the zombie process:

taskkill /f /pid 1234 

where "1234" is your ProcessID (aka PID)

*Extra tip if you use Windows Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu WSL):

✔ Step one:

sudo lsof -t -i:3000 

✔ Step two:

sudo kill -9 1234 

4 Comments

How to automate the process and combine these two commands together in one bat file if there is no possibility to view the cmd output and then write new command manually?
@Serob_b set /p port="Enter port: " -> Input port FOR /F "tokens=5" %%T IN ('netstat -aon ^| findstr %port% ') DO ( SET /A ProcessId=%%T) &GOTO SkipLine :SkipLine -> Extracts PID into variable taskkill /f /pid %ProcessId% -> Kills the task cmd /k -> Keep the window open
@Vikrant Is there a way to hide all the commands and just show "Enter port: " and "SUCCESS: The process with PID 35264 has been terminated." ?
@CrazyVideoGamez @echo off
191

Step 1 (same is in accepted answer written by KavinduWije):

netstat -ano | findstr :yourPortNumber 

Change in Step 2 to:

tskill typeyourPIDhere 

Note: taskkill is not working in some git bash terminal

1 Comment

This is the solution that worked for me. I'm using GIT Bash.
116

If you are using GitBash

Step one:

netstat -ano | findstr :8080 

Step two:

taskkill /PID typeyourPIDhere /F 

(/F forcefully terminates the process)

1 Comment

@kylexy1357 try with a single slash. The "double slash" is an escape character that precedes the /, which is not needed for some shells
91

The simplest solution — the only one I can ever remember:

In Windows Powershell

Say we want to stop a process on port 8080

  1. Get the process:
netstat -ano | findstr :8080 
  1. Stop the process
stop-process 82932 

2 Comments

this one helped me! I'm on Win10 ~
need to run from powershell (not git bash)
64

If you already know the port number, it will probably suffice to send a software termination signal to the process (SIGTERM):

kill $(lsof -t -i :PORT_NUMBER) 

4 Comments

If you know the port is using IPv4 you can do an lsof -nt -i4TCP:9001 as well.
I had to do kill -9 $(lsof -t -i :PORT_NUMBER)
Thank you, so much overkill in other answers. Literally just need this scripted
The term 'lsof' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file
46

For use in command line:

for /f "tokens=5" %a in ('netstat -aon ^| find ":8080" ^| find "LISTENING"') do taskkill /f /pid %a 

For use in bat-file:

for /f "tokens=5" %%a in ('netstat -aon ^| find ":8080" ^| find "LISTENING"') do taskkill /f /pid %%a 

4 Comments

If you want to do it in a .bat, replace %a for %%a
This answer was the only one line command to work for me so it's really good. I have a task running on two ports which cause the error "ERROR: The process "6552" not found." because the task has already been exited.
Need really far scroll down to get a "programmatic" answer like this. BTw what is tokens=5?
a one-line solution that can be used in package.json scrripts without manual steps
43

Simple CMD is working me. Easy to remember

find the port number which you want kill and run the below cmd

npx kill-port 8080 

After complete the Port get stopped and getting this message

npx: installed 3 in 13.796s Process on port 8080 killed 

Comments

34

In Windows PowerShell version 1 or later to stop a process on port 3000 type:

Stop-Process (,(netstat -ano | findstr :3000).split() | foreach {$[$.length-1]}) -Force


As suggested by @morganpdx here`s a more PowerShell-ish, better version:

Stop-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 3000).OwningProcess -Force

3 Comments

'Stop-Process' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
I find that this works: Stop-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 3000).OwningProcess -Force
I get the error: "Get-NetTCPConnection : No MSFT_NetTCPConnection objects found with property 'LocalPort' equal to '49610'. Verify the value of the property and retry." However, IIS Express is complaining about this port not being available.
23

Open command prompt and issue below command

netstat -ano|findstr "PID :8888" 

Output will show the process id occupying the port

enter image description here

Issue below command to kill the PID

taskkill /pid 8912 /f 

You will receive the output as below

SUCCESS: The process with PID 8860 has been terminated. 

1 Comment

Works perfectly on newer versions of Powershell too!
20

If you can use PowerShell on Windows you just need :

Get-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort "8080").OwningProcess | Stop-Process 

2 Comments

I like this one-liner (even though it throws ugly messages when there is NO matching process)!
yes, you are right, but I think I have used when a port is blocked so I never tested the case when there is no matching process! anyway good point :)
17

For Windows users, you can use the CurrPorts tool to kill ports under usage easily:

Enter image description here

1 Comment

No need for CurrPorts. In windows 10+ you can use the Resource Monitor, more precisely its Network Tab. In the bottom pane, there is a section listing all the opened ports and the PID of the processes which are using these ports.
11

I was running zookeeper on Windows and wasn't able to stop ZooKeeper running at 2181 port using zookeeper-stop.sh, so tried this double slash "//" method to taskkill. It worked

 1. netstat -ano | findstr :2181 TCP 0.0.0.0:2181 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 8876 TCP [::]:2181 [::]:0 LISTENING 8876 2.taskkill //PID 8876 //F SUCCESS: The process with PID 8876 has been terminated. 

Comments

11

Let's Automate!

If you fall into this issue much often like me, make an .bat file and run it to end process.

create a bat file "killport.bat"

set /P port="Enter port : " echo showing process running with port %port% netstat -ano|findstr "PID :%port%" set /P pid="Enter PID to kill : " taskkill /pid %pid% /f set /P exit="Press any key to exit..." 

Run this file by double clicking and

  1. Enter port number (then it will list process with PID)
  2. Enter PID to kill

Done

(Optional)

Set to path environment so that you can access this file from anywhere.

Most probably you will know how to add an new path to env. But here's how if you don't

Step 1 of 4

Search ENV on start menu

enter image description here

Step 2 of 4

Select Environment Variables

enter image description here

Step 3 of 4

Select 'path' and click Edit button

enter image description here

Step 4 of 4

Click 'New' add the path where .bat file is stored. Since I saved it on '../Documents/bats' folder I am adding this path. Your path will depend on where you save this file.

enter image description here

Open CMD and test. Remember you filename will the word to run this file. Since I saved the .bat file as 'killport.bat' => 'killport' is the word to run it.

enter image description here if do enjoy! else share how you done it here

Comments

11

Run cmd as administrator. Then type this code in there.

netstat -ano | findstr :<8080> 

Then you can see the PID run on your port. Then copy that PID number. ( PID is a unique number that helps identify a hardware product or a registered software product.) And type below code line and press enter.

taskkill /PID <Enter the copied PID Number> /F 

Comments

9

If you're using Windows Terminal then the killing process might be little less tedious. I've been using windows terminal and kill PID works fine for me to kill processes on the port as the new Windows Terminal supports certain bash commands. For example: kill 13300

So, the complete process will look like this-

  • Open Windows Terminal
  • Type the following command to show processes running on the port you're looking to kill processes. netstat -ano | findstr :PORT
  • Type following to kill the process. kill PID

For Example:

PS C:\Users\username> netstat -ano | findstr :4445 TCP 0.0.0.0:4445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 7368 TCP [::]:4445 [::]:0 LISTENING 7368 PS C:\Users\username> kill 7368 PS C:\Users\username> netstat -ano | findstr :4445 PS C:\Users\username> 

See when I typed the first command to list processes on the port it returned empty. That means all processes are killed now.

Update: kill is an alias for Stop-Process. Thanks, @FSCKur for letting us know.

7 Comments

I know this works because I tested it, I'm trying to find documentation around it, do you have any?
@DanStarns, I've found only this so far! learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal
Thanks for your time, it's not quite the page I'm looking for, a page with all the functions provided in the terminal such as kill. Ill post here if i find.
I haven't found much about this as of now. Please post if you find anything.
I have to downvote because of your confusion about kill. It's NOTHING to do with your choice of terminal. As any fool knows, in PS you use Get-Command to understand what command you're running, and it shows you that, on Windows, kill is an alias for Stop-Process. On Linux it's not an alias but the native command.
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8

If you use powershell 7+ this worked for me. Just add this function in your $PROFILE file.

function killport([parameter(mandatory)] [string] $uport){ if($upid = (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort $uport -ErrorAction Ignore).OwningProcess){kill $upid} } 

then simply use killport 8080

or if you prefer just the command you can try this:

kill $(Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 8761 -ErrorAction Ignore).OwningProcess 

4 Comments

Where is the $PROFILE file?
You can always find it using the echo $PROFILE command. You can also use notepad $PROFILE to directly open it in notepad
@Cos $PROFILE is something similar to .bashrc or .bash_profile in Linux/Unix.
I didn't try adding to the $PROFILE, but this script also works on PowerShell 5.1
6

You can do by run a bat file:

@ECHO OFF FOR /F "tokens=5" %%T IN ('netstat -a -n -o ^| findstr "9797" ') DO ( SET /A ProcessId=%%T) &GOTO SkipLine :SkipLine echo ProcessId to kill = %ProcessId% taskkill /f /pid %ProcessId% PAUSE 

Comments

4

In case you want to do it using Python: check Is it possible in python to kill process that is listening on specific port, for example 8080?

The answer from Smunk works nicely. I repeat his code here:

from psutil import process_iter from signal import SIGTERM # or SIGKILL for proc in process_iter(): for conns in proc.connections(kind='inet'): if conns.laddr.port == 8080: proc.send_signal(SIGTERM) # or SIGKILL continue 

1 Comment

This worked for a socket that uses a particular port number in Google Cloud as well! Thanks a ton
3

the first step

netstat -vanp tcp | grep 8888 

example

tcp4 0 0 127.0.0.1.8888 *.* LISTEN 131072 131072 76061 0 tcp46 0 0 *.8888 *.* LISTEN 131072 131072 50523 0 

the second step: find your PIDs and kill them

in my case

sudo kill -9 76061 50523 

1 Comment

Even if this is a correct answer. The question was asked for windows environment and your answer is invalid on a Linux system.
3
netstat -ano | findstr :PORT kill PI 

Comments

2

One line solution using GitBash:

 tskill `netstat -ano | grep LISTENING | findstr :8080 | sed -r 's/(\s+[^\s]+){4}(.*)/\1/'` 

Replace 8080 with the port your server is listening to.

If you need to use it often, try adding to your ~/.bashrc the function:

function killport() { tskill `netstat -ano | findstr LISTENING | findstr :$1 | sed -r 's/^(\s+[^\s]+){4}(\d*)$/\1/'` } 

and simply run

killport 8080 

2 Comments

I got the error: bash: taskill: command not found
@ChauGiang It seems a typo. Use tskill instead of taskill.
1

I wrote a tiny node js script for this. Just run it like this: node killPort.js 8080 or whatever port you need to kill. Save the following to a killPort.js file:

const { exec } = require('child_process'); const fs = require(`fs`); const port = process.argv.length > 2 ? process.argv[2] : ``; if (!port || isNaN(port)) console.log(`port is required as an argument and has to be a number`); else { exec(`netstat -ano | findstr :${port}`, (err, stdout, stderr) => { if (!stdout) console.log(`nobody listens on port ${port}`); else { const res = stdout.split(`\n`).map(s => s.trim()); const pid = res.map(s => s.split(` `).pop()).filter(s => s).pop(); console.log(`Listener of ${port} is found, its pid is ${pid}, killing it...`); exec(`taskkill /PID ${pid} /F`, (err, stdout, stderr) => { if (!stdout) console.log(`we tried to kill it, but not sure about the result, please run me again`); else console.log(stdout); }) } }); } 

1 Comment

are you using Mac?
1

I am using GitBash and I error like below when ran

taskkill //PID XXXX

ERROR: The process with PID 7420 could not be terminated. Reason: This process can only be terminated forcefully (with /F option).

So used //F like below and worked fine

taskkill //F //PID XXXX

Comments

0

Here is a script to do it in WSL2

PIDS=$(cmd.exe /c netstat -ano | cmd.exe /c findstr :$1 | awk '{print $5}') for pid in $PIDS do cmd.exe /c taskkill /PID $pid /F done 

Comments

-3

We can avoid this by simple restarting IIS, using the below command:

IISRESET 

Comments

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