You may have experienced problems loading web pages while browsing the internet. A website may become unresponsive or appears outdated. This is very frustrating, right? This issue occurs because of the old cache in your browser.
In such situations, a hard refresh of the browser is a helpful solution. Hard refresh cleans the old browser cache and forces the browser to retrieve the updated version of the web page from the server.
It’s a quick and easy fix to refresh the browser that can kill your frustration in just a few minutes. So, we’ll go through the simple steps to perform a hard refresh on different browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge
Stick with this short guide to refresh a browser on your computer and you’ll never have to worry about outdated websites again.
Table of Contents
Steps to Hard Refresh Browser
Although refreshing a browser doesn’t take too long but it’s really helpful to fix web page issues and accessing the latest information on websites.
Note: Simply clicking on reload ↻ button, located to the left of the browser’s address bar, doesn’t retrieve the latest copy of a website from the server. Therefore, you need to perform a hard refresh of the browser.
You can follow the procedure according to your default browser to refresh it completely. We will be using the Windows operating system for this tutorial
Hard Refresh Google Chrome Browser
There are two ways to hard refresh Google Chrome in Windows using keyboard shortcut keys:
- Press the Ctrl keyboard key and click the Reload ↻ button in Chrome at once OR
- Press the Ctrl and F5 keyboard keys at the same time
Alternately, you can press the Shift key as well instead of Ctrl to hard refresh a website in Chrome:
- Press the ⇧ Shift key and click the Refresh ↻ button in Chrome OR
- Press the ⇧ Shift and F5 keys from the keyboard at once
These methods will force the browser to empty the cache and hard reload the page in Google Chrome. Now, the browser will fetch fresh website data from the server. Using this method, you can fix a website that is not loading properly or displaying outdated information in windows 10 and 11.
If you only want to force refresh or flush the cache of one website or two then, this method is fine. However, if you wish to hard refresh all the websites whose cache is stored on your browser, you can do it at once as well.
In this method, we’ll clear the Chrome browser cache so, it downloads the latest copy of every web page, it’s also known as a complete hard refresh of the browser.
Follow the given steps to completely hard refresh the Chrome browser using the settings:
- Open the Google Chrome browser > click on three dots ⋮ to open the Chrome menu
- Navigate to More tools > select Clear Browsing Data in the drop-down menu:
- Alternatively, you can press Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + Del keyboard keys at once to access this page
- In the Basic tab, select All time and make sure the Cached images and files option is checked:
- Finally, click on the Clear data button
This way, you can clear the cache and now, Chrome will retrieve the recent version of every website instead of using the cached version. It’ll ensure you’re viewing updated and fresh website content.
If you’re an Android user, you can refresh your browser on android as well. You can check this comprehensive guide as well.
In this way, you can hard refresh your Chrome browser easily.
Hard Refresh Mozilla Firefox Browser
There are three ways to hard refresh the Mozilla Firefox browser in Windows using keyboard keys:
- Press the Ctrl key and click the Refresh ↻ button in Firefox at once OR
- Press the Ctrl and F5 keys together OR
- Press the Ctrl, ⇧ Shift, and R keyboard keys at the same time
It’ll delete the cached version of a specific page and you’ll get the new data of the website. You can choose any of the three methods explained.
Now, follow the given steps to fully clear the cache or hard refresh the Firefox browser using the settings:
- Click on the hamburger ≡ button > open Settings:
- In the left menu bar, go to Privacy & Security option > scroll down to find Clear Data under Cookies and Site Data section:
- Tick-mark the box Cached Web Content and click on the Clear button
- In the confirmation box, click on the Clear now button
Now, the Firefox browser will load new website content from the server. These are simple steps to hard refresh the Firefox browser.
If you use this browser on your Macbook also, you should know the procedure to refresh the browser on your Mac as well.
Hard Refresh Microsoft Edge Browser
There are two ways to hard refresh the Microsoft Edge browser using keyboard shortcut keys in Windows:
- Hold the Ctrl key and click the Reload ↻ button in Edge at once OR
- Press the Ctrl and F5 keyboard keys at the same time
Also, you can use the Shift key instead of Ctrl as well to hard refresh a website in Microsoft Edge:
- Press the ⇧ Shift key and click the Refresh ↻ button in Edge OR
- Press the ⇧ Shift and F5 keys from the keyboard at once
These steps to hard refresh a browser are the same on internet explorer as well. However, Microsoft retired internet explorer on June 15, 2022. So, internet explorer users have to upgrade to Edge or any other browser.
You can also perform a complete hard refresh on the Edge browser using the settings:
- Click on three dots ... > open Settings:
- In the left menu bar, select Privacy, search, and services > click on Choose what to clear under Clear browsing data:
- Now, select All time and make sure the cached images and files option is selected:
- After that, click on the Clear now button
Now, the outdated browser cache of all the websites has been cleared. The browser will, now, download the latest website data from the server. This way, you can force refresh the Microsoft Edge browser.
Hard Refresh Opera Browser
You can hard refresh the Opera browser in two simple ways using the keyboard keys in Windows:
- Press the Ctrl key and click the Reload ↻ button in Opera, located to the left of the browser’s address bar, at once OR
- Press the Ctrl and F5 keyboard keys at the same time
This will force Opera to delete the old cache of the web page and reload it to get a new copy of the website from the server.
Now, follow the given steps to fully hard refresh the Opera browser using settings:
- Click on the hamburger ≡ button > scroll down and select the Clear option next to the Browsing data:
- In the Basic tab, select All time and make sure the Cached images and files option is checked:
- It’ll clear the old browser cache
These are a few simple steps to perform a hard refresh on the Opera browser to fix web page cache issues. In addition, you should know how to refresh the browser on your iPhone device.
Why do I Need to Hard Refresh my Browser?
You may have noticed that a website takes a while to load properly for the first time, but subsequently loads much faster. This happens because the browser downloads necessary files from the server on the first visit and stores them in its cache.
On subsequent visits, the browser retrieves a complete web page from the computer’s browser cache instead of retrieving them again from the server which improves the load times. However, if a web page is updated and your browser still has an older version cached, you may not be able to see the updated information.
Now, your browser needs to fetch the latest version from the server. Hard refresh forces the browser to get the latest website copy. So, the primary to hard refresh your browser is to ensure that you are viewing the most up-to-date version of a webpage.
Hard refreshing your browser may seem like a small task, but it can have a big impact on your browsing experience. So, you should manually clear the cache or hard refresh your internet browser. You can clear the history of the browser as well, although it’s optional.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Different Between Normal Refresh and Hard Refresh?
In normal or standard refresh, a webpage is reloaded from the browser’s cache, which may contain outdated content. On the other hand, a hard refresh bypasses the browser’s cache and reloads the website data from the server to show the latest data.
How do I Get my Browser to Hard Refresh Automatically?
To automatically hard refresh your browser, go to Chrome Settings > Privacy and Security > Cookies and other site data > enable the option Clear cookies and site data when you close all windows. Now, the browser will automatically delete the cache and other files when you close the browser.
When Should I Hard Refresh my Browser?
You should perform a hard refresh when you experience issues with a webpage like if a page appears outdated, has missing images, or has broken links. In this situation, a hard refresh will delete the cached version and retrieve the fresh page from the server.
Will Doing a Hard Refresh Delete My Browsing History?
No, hard refresh doesn’t delete your browsing data instead it only clears the old cache file and requests all content from the server to display the latest version of a website. Also, it won’t clear your saved passwords as well. However, you can manually clear browsing data and passwords.
Where is The Browser Refresh Button?
In most browsers, the refresh button is located to the left of the browser address bar. However, the hard refresh button is not available. For this, you need to use shortcut keys. Press Ctrl + F5 keys together on a web page in windows to hard refresh the browser.
Conclusion: How to Refresh Browser?
Although caching the web pages speeds up the loading process, it can also cause some problems with displaying the most recent data. You have to do a hard refresh in order to access the latest information.
You can hard refresh your browser by following the steps described in this article according to your default web browser. It’s recommended to flush the cache regularly to ensure that the browser displays the most up-to-date version of the website.
If you found this guide helpful and learned how to refresh a browser, do share it with others as well so that they can also get benefit from it.
