When you browse the web, your browser stores information from sites on your device in something called a browser cache. This helps improve the browsing speed and reduces the amount of data your need to download. Generally, this a positive thing but occasionally the cache can cause problems and that's when you may be asked to "clear your browser cache".
Clearing the whole browser cache can be inconvenient and mean you need to login to all your various websites again. Before we do clear the cache, there are some easy things we can try...
Force Refresh
When you refresh or reload a page, your browser often presents a stored (cached) version of the page instead of re-downloading everything. However in all desktop browsers, you can tell the browser to ignore the cache and force a full refresh of that page by doing the following...
- Windows and Linux browsers: CTRL + F5
- Chrome and Firefox for Mac: CMD + SHIFT + R
- Apple Safari: SHIFT + Reload toolbar button or CMD + SHIFT + R
Private Browsing / Incognito Mode
Every time you close an Incognito window and open it again, it automatically clears any cache and cookies from the previous session without affecting your regular browser windows. This is a great way to just test if the problem you are encountering persists, without losing anything.
Clearing all the Cache and Cookies for your Browser
If you do need to clear all the cache and cookies in your browser, the following links will guide you through that process for each browser.