How to Clear the Cache (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iPhone, and Android)

What the Cache Actually Is

Every time you visit a website, your browser saves copies of some of its parts — pictures, logos, fonts, and bits of layout — on your device. That saved copy is the cache. The next time you visit the same site, the browser loads those saved parts from your device instead of downloading them again, so the page opens faster and uses less data.

That is a good system until the saved copy goes out of date. A site changes its logo, updates a price, or fixes a broken page, but your browser keeps showing the old saved version. Or the cache grows so large, over weeks and months, that the browser spends more time digging through it than it saves. That is when pages load slowly, images look broken, a site keeps logging you out, or a form refuses to submit.

Clearing the cache simply deletes those saved copies. The sites themselves are untouched — your accounts, bookmarks, and files are still there. The next time you visit each site, the browser downloads a fresh copy, which is why the first visit after clearing can feel a touch slower. After that, it is back to normal, with the fresh version.

What Clearing It Will — and Will Not — Delete

This is the part people worry about most, so here it is plainly. Clearing cached images and files deletes only the saved copies of pictures and page parts. It does not delete your saved passwords, your bookmarks, your browsing history, or your downloaded files.

What does sign you out of sites is clearing cookies. Cookies are the small notes sites leave behind to remember that you are logged in, what is in your shopping basket, and your preferences. Most browsers put cached files and cookies on the same clearing screen, with separate tick boxes, and it is easy to tick both by accident. If you only want to fix a stale page, tick cached images and files only, and leave cookies unticked. You will stay signed in.

There is one exception worth knowing. Some sites store their login in the cache itself, or break if their cached files are removed while their cookies stay. If a site asks you to sign in again after you clear the cache, that is normal — sign in once and it will remember you again. And if you use a password manager or your browser's saved passwords, those are stored separately and clearing the cache does not touch them.

Try a Hard Refresh First

Before clearing anything, try a hard refresh. It tells the browser to ignore its saved copy for this one page and download it fresh, and it takes two seconds.

On Windows, hold Ctrl and press F5, or hold Ctrl and press R. On a Mac, hold Command and Shift, then press R. On a phone there is no hard-refresh key, so the closest equivalent is to close the tab completely and open the site again in a new tab.

If the page now looks right, you are done — no need to clear anything. A hard refresh fixes the single most common cache problem, which is a page that looks old or half-loaded. Only move on to clearing the whole cache if the same problem shows up on several sites, or if the hard refresh changes nothing.

Clear the Cache in Chrome

On a Windows or Mac computer, open Chrome and press Ctrl + Shift + Delete (on a Mac, Command + Shift + Delete). That opens the clear-browsing-data panel directly. You can also get there through the three-dot menu in the top right, then Settings, then Privacy and security, then Delete browsing data.

In the panel, choose a time range. "Last hour" is enough if the problem started recently. "Last 24 hours" covers a bad day. "All time" clears everything and is the right choice if you have never cleared the cache before, or if the problem has been going on for weeks. Tick "Cached images and files" and leave "Cookies and other site data" unticked if you want to stay signed in. Then press Delete data and close the panel. There is nothing else to confirm — it is done the moment the panel closes.

On the Chrome app for phones, the steps are similar but the menus are smaller. Tap the three dots, then History, then Clear browsing data. Pick the same two choices — cached images and files, and a time range — then tap Clear data. On Android, Chrome may ask you to confirm once more. On iPhone, the button reads Clear Browsing Data and the same tick boxes appear.

Clear the Cache in Safari

Safari on a Mac hides the cache option behind its Develop menu, which is switched off by default. First, open Safari, then Settings (or Preferences on older versions), then Advanced, and tick "Show Develop menu in menu bar". That sounds technical, but it is one tick box, and it stays on afterwards.

Now click Develop in the menu bar at the top of the screen and choose Empty Caches. There is no confirmation box and no time range to pick — Safari clears the whole cache at once. That is all there is to it. Your history, bookmarks, and saved passwords are untouched.

Clearing cookies in Safari is a separate step, under Settings, then Privacy, then Manage Website Data, and you should only go there if a site keeps misbehaving after the cache is cleared. On an iPhone, Safari's cache is cleared through the Settings app, not through Safari itself — that is covered in the iPhone section below.

Clear the Cache in Firefox and Edge

In Firefox on a computer, press Ctrl + Shift + Delete (Command + Shift + Delete on a Mac) to open the clear-history panel. Set the time range — "Everything" if this is your first clear — and tick Cache only. Untick cookies, history, and the rest unless you mean to clear those too. Press Clear Now.

Edge works the same way, because it is built on the same base as Chrome. Press Ctrl + Shift + Delete, or open the three-dot menu, then Settings, then Privacy, search, and services, then choose what to clear under Clear browsing data. Tick "Cached images and files", pick a time range, and press Clear now. As with Chrome, leave cookies unticked to stay signed in.

One small difference in Edge: the panel offers a choice to clear data "on close", which would clear the cache every time you shut the browser. That is not a setting most people want. It makes every first visit of the day slower, and it fixes nothing that a one-off clear would not fix. Leave it off.

Clear the Cache on iPhone

On an iPhone, the browser cache lives inside the Settings app. Open Settings, scroll down to Safari, then tap Clear History and Website Data. Despite the name, this also clears the cache — and it does clear cookies too, so expect to sign in to sites again afterwards. There is no way in Safari on iPhone to clear the cache without clearing cookies, so do this when you are ready to sign in again, or when the cache problem is annoying enough to be worth it.

If you use Chrome on your iPhone, clear it inside the Chrome app instead: three dots, then History, then Clear Browsing Data, tick cached images and files, and tap Clear Browsing Data. That version lets you keep cookies, so it is the gentler option if Chrome is your main browser.

For individual apps — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and the like — there is no cache button on iPhone. The only way to clear an app's cache is to delete the app and install it again. That sounds drastic, but your posts, messages, and account are stored on the company's servers, not on your phone, so reinstalling signs you back in with everything still there. Only do this if one app in particular is misbehaving and the browser steps do not apply.

Clear the Cache on Android

Android gives you two levels of cache clearing: the browser's, and each app's own. For Chrome on Android, tap the three dots, then History, then Clear browsing data, tick cached images and files, choose a time range, and tap Clear data. That covers websites.

For an app that is slow or showing stale content — a shopping app that will not update its prices, a news app stuck on yesterday's headlines — open Settings, then Apps, then find the app in the list and tap it. Tap Storage (on some phones it reads Storage & cache), then tap Clear Cache. Do not tap Clear Storage or Clear Data on that same screen: that button wipes the app's saved settings and sign-in, which is a much bigger reset. Clear Cache is the safe one, and the app will simply reload its images the next time you open it.

As a worked example, imagine a food delivery app that keeps showing a restaurant as closed when you know it is open. Clearing that app's cache forces it to fetch the restaurant's current status. If it still shows closed after the clear, the problem is the app's own data, not your phone, and no amount of cache clearing will change it.

Clear One Website Only

Sometimes only one site is broken and everything else is fine. Clearing the whole cache for one stubborn site is overkill — and it makes every other site reload slowly for a while. Most desktop browsers let you clear a single site instead.

In Chrome, go to the site, click the padlock or tune icon to the left of the address bar, then click Site settings, then Clear data. In Firefox, right-click the page and choose View Page Info, or open the padlock icon and choose Clear Cookies and Site Data for that site. In Safari on a Mac, open Settings, then Privacy, then Manage Website Data, search for the site's name, select it, and press Remove.

Try this first when a single site is the problem — a bank site that will not load its new layout, a webmail inbox showing old messages, a shop whose prices will not update. It fixes the stale copy for that site and leaves the rest of your cache alone.

How Often Should You Clear It?

For most people, every few months is plenty. There is no need to clear the cache weekly, and clearing it daily would be counterproductive — the cache exists to make pages faster, and wiping it every day means every site reloads from scratch every day.

Clear it when you have a reason: a site looks old or broken, pages load slowly for no clear reason, a site keeps logging you out, or a form or checkout keeps failing. Those are symptoms of a stale or corrupted cache. Outside of those, leave it alone and let it do its job.

One exception is a shared or public computer. If you use a library computer, a hotel computer, or a borrowed laptop, clearing the cache — and the history and cookies — when you finish is good practice, because the cache can contain copies of pages you viewed. On your own devices, that concern does not apply.

If Clearing the Cache Did Not Fix It

If the page still looks wrong after a full clear, the cache was not the problem. Work through the next most likely causes in this order.

First, check whether the problem happens in a different browser. If the site works in Firefox but not in Chrome, the problem is in Chrome — an extension, a setting, or a corrupted profile. Try the site in a private or incognito window, which runs without extensions. If it works there, one of your extensions is interfering, and you can switch them off one at a time to find it.

Second, check your internet connection itself. A page that half-loads, with missing images, can be a slow or dropping connection rather than a cache problem — our guide on fixing Wi-Fi that keeps dropping covers that. Third, if the site is down for everyone, no clearing will help: a quick search for the site's name plus "down" will usually tell you within seconds.

Finally, if a site asks you to clear cookies specifically — some banks and work portals do — then do clear cookies for that one site, using the single-site steps above, and sign in again. That is a different fix from clearing the cache, and it is the one those sites actually need.

Questions People Ask

Will clearing the cache delete my passwords?

No. Saved passwords are stored separately from the cache, in your browser's password store or your password manager. Clearing cached images and files does not touch them. What can sign you out of sites is clearing cookies, which is a separate tick box — leave it unticked if you want to stay signed in.

Will clearing the cache make my phone faster?

Sometimes, a little, and only if the cache had grown very large or corrupted. It is not a general speed fix. If your phone is slow everywhere, the cause is usually storage space, an old battery, or too many apps running — clearing one app's cache will not change that. Our guide on freeing up phone storage covers the fixes that actually help.

Why does a site look old even after I cleared the cache?

Usually one of three things. You cleared the cache in one browser but are viewing the site in another. The site itself is serving an old copy from its own server cache, which you cannot clear. Or an extension is interfering — try a private window, which runs without extensions, and compare.

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