Sometimes, when you use a web browser, you may find that pages are slow to load or get stuck and don’t load at all. The problem can be fixed by quitting and restarting the browser. But that doesn’t solve the underlying issue, which is usually that the browser cache has become bloated or corrupt, causing the browser to misbehave. We’ll show you how to hard refresh Chrome on Mac, as well as other web browsers, to fix the problem.

What does a hard refresh do?

A hard refresh clears the browser’s cache and forces it to reload page data from the web server instead of pulling it from the cached data stored on your Mac.

But why do you need a hard refresh? Loading a web page from cache is a good time saver for a browser, but if a page is updated regularly, the cache won’t reflect changes and that may mean the page you see isn’t the most recent version. Cache can also become bloated and slow down browser performance, and it can become corrupt, making your web browser unstable.

How to hard refresh Chrome and other browsers

To do a hard refresh, we need to clear cache. Each browser does that differently. We’ve listed details for key Mac web browsers below.

Chrome

The easiest way to do a hard refresh in Chrome is to press Command + Shift + R. That forces the page to reload from the server. You can also hold the Command key down and press the reload button. If you want to clear all Chrome cache, follow the steps below:

  1. Click the three buttons at the right of the address bar and choose Settings.
  2. Go to Privacy and Security and click Delete browsing data.
  3. Choose All Time from the Time range menu.
  4. Select the checkbox next to Cached images and files.
  5. Click Delete data.

Safari

As with Chrome, there’s a keyboard shortcut to hard refresh and empty caches. It’s Command-Option-E. You can also use its menu command if you don’t like keyboard shortcuts, but you will have to enable the Develop menu first. Here’s how:

  1. Click the Safari menu and choose Settings.
  2. Go to the Advanced tab.
  3. Check the box labeled Show features for web developers.
  4. You will see the Develop menu in the menu bar. Click it and choose Empty caches.

To empty all caches, as well as other browser data in Safari, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to Safari Settings.
  2. Choose the Privacy tab.

  3. Click Manage website data.
  4. Wait for the data to load and click Remove All.

Firefox

Like Chrome, you can hard refresh Firefox by pressing Command-Option-R. That will force it to reload the page you are viewing from the web server instead of from cache.

To get rid of all Firefox’s cached files, follow the steps below:

  1. Click the Firefox menu and choose Settings.
  2. In the sidebar, select Privacy & Security and scroll down to Cookies and Site Data.
  3. Choose Everything from the menu next to When.
  4. Select the checkbox labeled Temporary cached files and pages and click Clear.

Easy way to do a hard refresh

As you can see, it is not too difficult to do a hard refresh, but there is an even easier way to do it. If you want to hard refresh all browsers installed on your Mac, you can even do that together.

This easy way involves using CleanMyMac’s Cleanup feature. It scans your Mac, looking for junk files that can be safely removed. It will also find browser cache. Here’s how it works:

  1. Get your free CleanMyMac trial.
  2. Open CleanMyMac and choose Cleanup in the sidebar.
  3. Click Scan > Review All Junk.
  4. In the System Junk tab, click User Cache Files, select your browsers, and click Clean Up.

If you want to remove even more browser data, run a quick Protection scan and click Manage Privacy Items. In the Privacy tab, you can then delete browsing history, autofill data, cookies, and other information. Not only will it make your browsers work flawlessly, but it will also help bring your privacy to a whole new level.

Doing a hard refresh of a web page forces the browser you’re using to load the whole page from the web server rather than cache on your Mac. That can fix problems and make sure you get the latest content. Follow the steps above to do a hard refresh in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.