How to kill a desktop flow that is stuck?

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Posted on by DawidM

It seems there is no 'kill' functionality to stop the running flow that got into endless loop or got stuck if it was started by Cloud Flow (in either Attended or Unattended mode).

I had a run that got into endless loop and Safe Stop did not work. I cancelled the parent Cloud Flow, but desktop flow continued running. I was only able to 'kill' it by shutting down the machine it was running on.

I know I should fix the flow to prevent this, but once it happens, I don't have means to stop it from Power Automate (cloud) side.

Is there anything that I'm missing?

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Power Automate Desktop

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eetuRobo 4,206 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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You should be able to stop the flow from the designer in the flows Stop -button

If you cant focus on the window since your flow is focusing on somewhere else then add short cut key to stop the flow
From general settings you can add shortcut key that stops the flow

In flow settings you can add Flow timeout so that it doesn't run forever

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VishnuReddy1997 2,656 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @DawidM,

You can kill the flow from task manager .

Regards,

Vishnu Reddy

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DawidM 2 on at

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@VishnuReddy1997 & @eetuRobo

Thank you for your responses, but they assume I am running it from designer. I updated my question so it's clear the run is started by cloud flow.

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CU31080729-3 500 Moderator on at

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Hi,@DawidM

You can fallow the method suggest by @VishnuReddy1997 & @eetuRobo if you run flow from designer mode .

if run flow from cloud flow and you want to stop your flow then follow step .

1) go to cloud

2) click on desktop flow activity

3) then click on current run
4) you can see currently running and currently queue and click on currently running
5) then you can see currently running flow and click on 3 dot of this flow and click on cancel run

6) and refresh browser (if flow showing running then again cancel it)

this step you can used to stop the flow

Thanks & Regards
Chetan Ninghot

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eetuRobo 4,206 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Thank you for the clarification that its started from the cloud.
I haven't had any issues when cancelling the flow from the cloud. It might take minute or two for the Power Automate Desktop flow to terminate since it will perform the action it is currently doing to the end and some actions like run a script might take sometime to perform. And after it has finished the current action then it will sign out from the machine which might take minute or so.
How long have you waited after cancelling the cloud flow?

You can still add the timeout for the flow and test if that is able to terminate the flow when it has been stuck for a length of time that you know it is stuck in endless loop.

I haven't tried safe stop my self but if you have the if safe stop -block around the loop that the flow gets stuck then you should be able to terminate it from the cloud Run details page

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/safe-stop

Have you ran the flow attended and do you have a clear idea where the flow gets stuck? If you like to get help on fixing the logic so that it doesn't get stuck then share a screenshot of the part where the flow gets stuck

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