How do I kill the process currently using a port on localhost in Windows?

Question

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

For example: localhost:8080

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

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

Solution 3

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

Solution 4

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

Solution 5

With Windows 10 default tools:

• Step one:

Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator

• Step two:

Find PID (ProcessID) for port 8080:

netstat -aon | findstr 8080

TCP 0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:0 LISTEN 77777

• Step three:

Kill the zombie process:

taskkill /f /pid 77777

where "77777" is your PID

View more solutions

Comments

[TripeHound]

@HardikMandankaa Is it the same process? Some software may be set up to relaunch the listening process if it is killed.

[Green]

'Stop-Process' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

[morganpdx]

I find that this works: Stop-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 3000).OwningProcess -Force

[Robert]

I had to enter escape characters when running taskkill: taskkill //PID 12552 //F

[Robert]

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

[nurettin]

accepted answer will not work for services which are set up to restart on failure (this is not linux)

[dxhans5]

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

[Mahesh Narwade]

If you want to do it in a .bat, replace %a for %%a

[Totty.js]

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."

[Chemist]

The colon symbol has to be in a very specific place. Can't change spaces or this command won't work. Otherwise this also works without colon: "netstat -ano | findstr 8080"

[vhs]

If you know the port is using IPv4 you can do an lsof -nt -i4TCP:9001 as well.

[Serob_b]

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?

[Ashwani Panwar]

What work for me is taskkill //PID myProcessId -F

[Vikrant]

@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

[VISQL]

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 .

[peevesy]

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

[Marcin Kulik]

i think you meant PID_NUMBER and not PORT_NUMBER in taskkill /PID PORT_NUMBER /F

[Dan Starns]

I know this works because I tested it, I'm trying to find documentation around it, do you have any?

[lazycipher]

@DanStarns, I've found only this so far! docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal

[Dan Starns]

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.

[lazycipher]

I haven't found much about this as of now. Please post if you find anything.

[tscpp]

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.

[Michael Elliott]

I can't believe I didn't know about this, so useful thank you!

[CrazyVideoGamer]

@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." ?

[gunes]

I had to do kill -9 $(lsof -t -i :PORT_NUMBER)

[VB_Dojnaz]

@CrazyVideoGamez @echo off

[Pranav Raut]

Even if this is a correct answer. The question was asked for windows environment and your answer is invalid on a Linux system.

[Eugene Beliaev]

yayy, awesome way :)

[gatsbyz]

love u so much rn

[Bharathiraja]

with colon not working netstat -ano | findstr :<portNumber>, without colon working fine netstat -ano | findstr <portNumber>

[FSCKur]

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.

[lazycipher]

@FSCKur, I don't think it was already there earlier(talking about alias)! It's something new that I found. Thanks for letting me know about the alias thing. I'll mention this thing in the answer.

[FSCKur]

Appreciated; sorry about my previous sharp tone. However, there's still confusion between terminal and shell. You have provided a Powershell answer. A user running bash in WT wouldn't get the same results. If you change "WT" to "PS" then your answer becomes correct... however, it's a PS community guideline to not use aliases in code or help, so I'd still not be happy.

[Shardj]

Thank you, so much overkill in other answers. Literally just need this scripted

[Timo]

Need really far scroll down to get a "programmatic" answer like this. BTw what is tokens=5?

[Basit]

Love it, Thanks for adding up in my knowledge

[Admin]

Thanks a lot, save my day!

[elakioui]

I used : netstat -ano to get the PID number and kill the process using : taskkill /PID <PID> /F .

[Code Whisperer]

Unnecessary comment but huzzah!

[GorvGoyl]

The term 'lsof' is not recognized as a name of a cmdlet, function, script file

[Namit Piriya]

what are the ano flag

[Daniel]

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

[Chau Giang]

I got the error: bash: taskill: command not found

[Italo Borssatto]

@ChauGiang It seems a typo. Use tskill instead of taskill.

[sg28]

Worked like a Charm for killing the running port. Thank you

[Rahul]

Awesome, Hurrey

[mbomb007]

I ran it in PowerShell, and taskkill needed to be run in an elevated shell.

[Code Cooker]

this one helped me! I'm on Win10 ~

[FCA69]

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.

[Cos]

Where is the $PROFILE file?