What is your Cache, and how does it work?

What is your Cache, and how does it work?

What is your Cache, and how does it work?

If you have viewed a website in the past, then in order to speed up the process of loading a website, your browser stores certain items for future use.  These would be items such as photos or images, icons and even buttons.  In some cases this could even extend to a whole webpage.  

The next time you make your way to that website, your browser will check to see if it has previously saved some of that information in it’s Cache.  If it has, then it will save loading times by using this, instead of downloading a fresh copy from the site itself.

 

Why would I need to clear the Cache?

In most cases, you won’t need to clear your Cache, and that’s perfectly fine.  In some cases if you are working with an agency on a new website, you may be regularly looking at updates to your site.  In this case, you will need to load the newest version of your site as it may be constantly getting updated by your team.  

Sometimes people think that they might lose all of their stored passwords, but when done properly this is not the case.  

In most cases, we can force a Hard Refresh (clear the cache for a single website) with some simple keyboard shortcuts, however in some instances there may be a little more to it, but we’ll go over this below.  

When viewing the page that you want to clear, press the following buttons at the same time depending on your browser:

 

Hard Refresh

Windows

  • Chrome: Press CTRL+SHIFT+R
  • FireFox: Press CTRL+F5
  • Opera: Press SHIFT+F5
  • Microsoft Edge: Scroll down to see how to flush the Cache on Edge.
  • Internet Explorer: Microsoft no longer support updates for Internet Explorer, so we would recommend upgrading to one of the other browsers above.  

Mac

  • Chrome: COMMAND+SHIFT+R
  • Firefox: COMMAND+SHIFT+R
  • Opera: COMMAND+ALT+R
  • Safari: COMMAND+OPTION+R

 

Flush Cache

In some instances, you may need to flush the Cache that is stored for all sites stored on your computer.

 

Chrome

  1. Go to the menu in the top right corner of your browser, displayed by three dots.  Then go to More Tools > Clear Browsing Data
  2. Under the basic settings tab, select ‘All time’ from the drop down menu, and uncheck all boxes except ‘Cached images and files’.
  3. Click ‘Clear data’.

 

     

    Opera:

    1. Click the settings button on the top right corner, and click ‘Clear browsing data’.  You may need to scroll down to see this.
    2. Under the basic settings tab, select ‘All time’ from the drop down menu, and uncheck all boxes except ‘Cached images and files’.
    3. Click ‘Clear data’.

      

       

      Firefox:

      1. Click on the settings – or hamburger menu on the top right corner, and then click on Preferences (if you are using a Mac) or Settings (if you are using Windows).
      2. Then click on Privacy & Security and click Clear Data.  You may need to scroll down to see this.
      3. Uncheck all boxes except Cached Web Content, and click Clear.

          

       

      Edge:

      1. Click on the button on the top right corner, this will look like three horizontal dots.  Then click Settings.
      2. Then click on Privacy & Security and Choose what to clear.
      3. Uncheck all boxes except Cached data and files and click Clear

        

       

      Internet Explorer:

      1. Click on the settings button on the top right corner, this is symbolised with a gear.  Then click Safety and Delete browsing history.
      2. After this, uncheck all boxes except Temporary Internet files and website files.  Then click Delete.