A standard refresh (F5 or Cmd+R) simply reloads the page, but it might still use cached files your browser has stored. A hard refresh forces the browser to ignore its cache for that page and download all files (scripts, images, styles) fresh from the server. This ensures you're seeing the absolute latest version of a site.


Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, & Opera

The steps are identical for all these browsers as they are based on the Chromium engine.

For Windows & Linux:

For macOS:

The "Developer Tools" Method (Even More Forceful):

  1. Open Developer Tools by pressing F12 (or Cmd + Option + I on Mac).
  2. Keep the tools open and right-click (or long-press) the refresh button in the browser toolbar.
  3. A menu will appear. Select "Empty Cache and Hard Reload". This is the most thorough way to clear the page's data.

Mozilla Firefox

For Windows & Linux:

For macOS: