How to clear your browser cache with a “hard refresh”

Clearing your browser’s local cache with a hard refresh is often the easiest way to “fix” your website if you aren’t seeing recent changes or if something is not working the way you expect.

What is a browser cache?

A website is just a collection of files that tell your browser what to display on your screen.

When you visit a website, your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.) downloads the files included with the website (CSS stylesheets, Javascript code, fonts, images, etc.) so it can display the website on your screen. This collection of downloaded files—the browser cache—is saved to your device. When you visit the website again, your browser loads the files from its cache on your device instead of re-downloading them.

Normally this is a good thing—it makes websites load faster. But sometimes the browser cache needs to be cleared.

Why does the browser cache need to be cleared?

Your browser will keep using files from its local cache until they expire or it is notified of new versions.

For example, when a web developer makes changes to your website’s CSS or Javascript files they can add a “cachebuster” that tells your browser there are new versions of those files, and it will download the new ones instead of using the cached versions.

But if your website doesn’t notify your browser that there is a new version to download, it will keep using its cached versions and you will see the old, outdated website instead of the newest, up-to-date version. For example, maybe you and your web developer are actively working on a page layout before going live with it, and not bothering to update the cachebuster with every tweak. In that case, when you visit the page to see the latest changes you won’t actually see them until you clear the browser cache.

If you aren’t seeing what you expect to see on a web page, of if something is not working the way you expect, the first and easiest thing to try is clearing the browser cache by refreshing the page using a hard refresh.

How to hard refresh your browser cache

A hard refresh forces your browser to get a new copy of the web page, skipping its local cache.

Each browser does this a little differently and most have a couple of different options. Learn your browser’s options and get in the habit of trying it whenever don’t see what you expect.

What if clearing the browser cache doesn’t work?

If a hard refresh to clear the browser cache doesn’t work, it could mean a few things. Here are some of the most likely things to check first:

• Does the website have its own cache or CDN to clear?
• Did I actually change the files I thought I changed?
• Did I actually upload the changed files?
• Is the website actually using the changed, uploaded files?
• Are the changes showing up on the page but not doing what I thought they would do?
• Is there an error message that helps explain the issue?

One of those usually leads me in the right direction, but I always start by clearing the browser cache with a hard refresh. Memorize how to do a hard refresh in the browser you use and it will definitely save time and frustration.