How to refresh a web page in Safari

Updated at: Oct 12, 2024

If you're having trouble with a website one of the easiest things you can do to fix the problem is simply refreshing the page that you're having trouble with. By telling your web browser to bypass its local cache of the site and freshly downloading and re-displaying the whole page - sometimes known as doing a "hard refresh" - you can sometimes fix problems with a website. Learn more: why does refreshing a web page sometimes help?

The easiest way to tell Safari to bypass its cache and completely refresh a page is to:

The Refresh button appears in the Navigation Bar in Safari. Here's a screenshot of it (highlighted with a blue circle):

When you hold ⇧ Shift and click the Refresh button, Safari will completely reload the page that you're currently looking at; it will freshly download all of the HTML, Images, Styles, JavaScript code etc and re-display the page.

Note: If you only click the Refresh button without also holding ⇧ Shift, Safari will still reload the HTML but it usually won't also reload the images, styles etc for the page. Doing this may not be enough to fix any caching issues you are having, so make sure to hold ⇧ Shift down when you click!

Other ways to bypass the cache and hard refresh a page in Safari

Here is a list of alternative ways that you can tell Safari to bypass its cache and reload the page that you're currently looking at, depending on the Operating System you're using.

Reloading a page in Safari on macOS

Use any of the following actions to bypass your cache and fully reload a page:

• Hold the ⇧ Shift key and click the Refresh button with your mouse
• Hold the ⌘ Command and ⌥ Option keys down and press the R key

Still having trouble with a website?

Bypassing the cache and reloading a webpage is a great first step for solving some problems with websites, but it won't always fix the problem. We've got a lot of guides to troubleshoot problems with websites that might be able to help you. Check them out, and if we don't have a solution for your problem yet, let us know - we'd love to write a guide for you.