How to refresh a web page

Updated at: Oct 12, 2024

These guides will show you how to reload a webpage and refresh your web browser cache for an individual page. Alternatively, instead of refreshing a single page, you might want to completely clear your cookies, cache and history.

List of guides to help you refresh a web page in your web browser

Following the guide for your browser will help you refresh a single page on a website. Refreshing a page can sometimes solve problems with other pages on the same website too. If you prefer, you can clear your browser cache, cookies and history for all the websites you've visited instead.

Why would you need to refresh a web page?

The act of refreshing a web page when you are having trouble with a website is a very common first step.

Sometimes - with computers - if something doesn't work the first time, simply trying again does actually seem to work a lot of the time! So completely refreshing a page that didn't load or work properly should basically always be the first thing you try.

Technically (and simply) speaking, the reason reloading a page can help is that the various files which get stored in your web browser cache can get out of sync with what's on the web server - so the contents of the current webpage no longer work in harmony with the cached copies of the styles/javascript/images that your computer has stored. Doing a full refresh of the page forces a clean slate and can solve some kinds of problems.

Triggering a full/hard refresh of a webpage is the first step to solving troubles with a website.

Note

The only time you probably don't want to do reload a page is when you are completing payment for an online purchase as it potentially may trigger two purchases... A lot of e-commerce websites have protection in place to stop these kinds problems these days, but it's worth being aware of.

What is a web browser cache?

As you browse the internet, your web browser will normally keep a temporary copy of all the files it needs to display a web page (files such as images, styles and JavaScript code) on your computer or phone - this is known as your "web browser cache".

Why does my web browser keep a cache of website data?

Your browser keeps a cache to help make your web browsing experience faster - so that when you go back to a page that you've already visited, or go to other pages on the same site, your browser already has a copy of most of the required files and doesn't need to re-download those common files (such as logos, icons, backgrounds, or JavaScript code etc) again. This is particularly helpful when your internet connection isn't very fast or reliable - the less you need to download the better!

Caching files in your web browser also helps the website too! It doesn't need to keep sending the same files over and over again to a visitor, which can help reduce the cost of running the website.

What does refreshing a page actually do?

Fully refreshing a webpage will cause your web browser to bypass the cache of files for a website that it has previously downloaded and instead download all of the files freshly. This ensures that you get the latest version of the website. If there's an underlying problem with the website then you'll still have that problem; but if the problem was some kind of inconsistency between your browser's local cache and the latest version of the website then it should theoretically fix your problem.

Did that help?

Hopefully forcing a hard refresh on the page helped you with your problem, but if it didn't, we've got a lot of other guides to help you with website problems. Check them out and hopefully they'll help you with your problem.

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