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How to Clear Cache

Why can’t I see the changes I made to my website?

Caching

Sometimes when you make a change to your website the changes will not appear instantly, as you are actually viewing a saved (cached) copy of your website. This allows your computer to view the website from a local copy, speeding up the time it takes to display in your web browser. These cached copies will only be stored in your computer for a short time, so the changes to your website will usually be viewable after a few hours.

There are three places that can save cached information:

  1. Your Web Browser, like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari
  2. Your Computer
  3. Your ISP  (Internet Provider, such as Spectrum, ATT, etc.)

1.  First step try clearing your browsing history on your computer.  You need to know what type of computer you are using and browser.  Windows or Mac?   

PC Browsers (Windows) – Clearing Cache/browsing history

Google Chrome
Go to the three-dot menu at the upper-right of Chrome to select Settings > Show advanced settings > Clear browsing data (or in the omnibar type “chrome://settings/clearBrowserData” without the quotation marks). This takes you directly to the dialog box to delete not only the history of your browsing, but also your download history (it won’t delete the actual downloaded files), all your cookies, cached images and files (which help load pages faster when you revisit), saved passwords and more. Better yet, you can delete only the info from the last hour, day, week, month, or all of it to “the beginning of time.”

 

Chrome doesn’t give you the option to not collect your browser history, or set a window for how much it should hold. It just collects and collects until you go in and delete it.

What’s more, if you have a Google account and are signed into it with Chrome, your history is likely being synced to Google My Activity. While it should be secured behind your Google account (use a password managerand two-factor authentication for the best protection), if you truly wish to be rid of history, go here, select the hamburger/three-dot menu up top > Activity Controls to turn off the inclusion of Chrome browser activity (from desktops and handhelds), as well as delete any activity synced with the service.

Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer
Go to the three-dot menu in Microsoft Edge and select settings; in the fly-out menu, click the button under Clear browsing data that reads “Choose what to clear.” Get rid of browsing and download history, cookies, cached data, stored form data, and stored passwords; click Show more and you can delete things like sites you’ve given permission to show pop-ups.

 

You can’t delete just one chunk of data from a time period like a day or week, but there is the option to “Always clear this [data] when I close the browser.” That ensures you have no browser history stored, as long as you close the browser regularly. Pick more data types and you’ll have next to nothing stored—which is fine until you’re entering the same passwords and 2FA logins over and over (the price of freedom, people).

edgebrowser clear

Like Google, Microsoft is keeping some of your history online. Click Change what Microsoft Edge knows about me in the cloud to visit a page for your Microsoft account where you can delete that synced browsing history. You can also delete search history at Bing.com, stored location data showing where you’ve logged in, and stuff you’ve stored in Cortana’s notebook.

Still using Internet Explorer (IE)? You’re not alone. To wipe the history in IE11 and 10, go to the Gear icon at upper left and select Internet Options. On the General tab, you can check a box next to Delete browsing history on exit, or click the Delete button to instantly get rid of history, passwords, cookies, cached data (called Temporary Internet files and website files), and more. If you instead click Settings, you go to a History tab and ensure your history is only collected for a specific number of days, automatically deleting anything older.

You have the option to get rid of your browsing history using the Favorites Menu. Click the star on the top-right > History tab. There, you can see websites you visited on specific dates (Today, Last Week, 3 Weeks Ago, etc.) Right-click to delete everything from a specific time period, or click to view and delete specific websites. If you’re using an older version of IE, there are instructions online for deleting the history.

 

Mozilla Firefox
The latest version of Firefox likes to use sidebars for accessing preferences, much like Microsoft Edge. Access them at the hamburger menu (at upper right) and you can go right to History. It’ll show all your visited sites and a Clear Recent History option (or hit Ctrl+Shift+Del for the same effect). If you select Options in that sidebar, you can go into preference for either remember history, never remember, or do some custom settings, such as always go into private browsing mode, or never store history or cookies, or to clear the history when closing Firefox.

 

Check the Sync tab while you’re in here—if you’ve signed on with a Mozilla Firefox account—your history (plus bookmarks, tabs, passwords, and preferences) may be synced with your other PCs and devices using Firefox, even on smartphones.

Mac – Clearing Browsing History

Safari
On macOS, Safari rules. Clearing your website visit history is simple: click Clear History in the main menu. Then in the pop-up, pick a timeframe for how far back you want to erase. This is doing a lot more than deleting the browser history, however—it also takes out your cookies and data cache.

You can instead click History > Show History to get a pop-up displaying every site you’ve visited, then take out sites individually, without losing the cookies and cache. You can zap cookies by going into Preferences > Privacy; delete your cache by going to the Develop menu and picking Empty Caches. If you don’t have a Develop menu in Safari, go to Preferences > Advanced and check Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar at bottom.

Mobile Browsers

Safari    (Iphone, Ipad)
On the iPhone and iPad, Safari is the standard browser. To not record a browser history, you can just stay in Private mode while surfing. When you do have a history to delete, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History & Website Data. Doing this not only takes out the history, but also cookies and other stuff. Plus, if the phone is signed into iCloud, it clears the history on iCloud as well as on other devices hooked into that iCloud account.

If you want to only delete data for select sites, go back to Settings > Safari and scroll down to Advanced > Website Data. After it loads (it can take a while) you’ll see a listing of every website you’ve visited—and probably a lot you didn’t, because it also records the sites serving third-party cookies. Click edit > minus symbol next to each to delete, or just swipe left for the same function.

 

Chrome  (Android)
Google’s Chrome browser is the standard with all Android phones, and is downloadable on iOS. In either, go to the three-dot (horizontal ellipsis) menu, select History, and you’re looking at the list of all sites you’ve visited while cognito (as opposed to Incognito)—and that includes history across all Chrome browsers signed into the same Google account.

With iOS, you have the option to either click Edit or Clear Browsing Data at the bottom. If you click the latter (which is the only option on Android phones and tablets), you’re sent to a dialog box (below) that allows the eradication of all browsing history, cookies, cached data, saved passwords, and autofill data—you pick which you want to delete. Android users get the added ability to limit deletion to an hour, a day, a week, a month, or the legendary “beginning of time.”

2.  Second step if you still can’t see your changes, try this.


Clearing your Computers Cache

Windows

Step 1

In the start menu, enter cmd in the text box provided and click [enter] on your keyboard.

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Step 2

The command prompt will appear. In the text box, type ipconfig /flushdns and press [enter] on your keyboard.

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Step 3

You will receive confirmation that your cache has been cleared. Type exit and press enter on your keyboard to close the window.

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Mac

Step 1

Open a terminal session.

Step 2

  • Mac OSX Version 10.5.1 or below: Type lookupd -flushcache into the terminal session and press [enter] on your keyboard.
  • Later than Mac OSX Version 10.5.1: Type dscacheutil -flushcache into the terminal session and press [enter] on your keyboard.

3.  The last step is contacting your ISP provider.  

If you are still unable to see the changes on your website it is likely that you are viewing a page cached on your ISPs servers. Unfortunately it is not possible to clear the cache on these servers, although you may be able to see the changes to your site by using another connection.

View your site here to check it how it looks on the internet to others: geopeeker.com