339

Does Chrome have an equivalent to Firefox's Ctrl+F5 refresh? I can't seem to find one.

I changed my gravatar last night, and I can see the new one in Firefox after a Ctrl+F5 refresh, but Chrome seems to be stubbornly hanging on to the old Gravatar. I guess I could manually clear out the cache, but if there is a keyboard command to do it I'd like to know what it is (since it would be helpful for web development too).

3

11 Answers 11

220

Chrome documentation states that Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 should do "Reloads your current page, ignoring cached content. "

If it is not working, you can file a bug report, but it looks like quite a few other people are having the same issue.

[Existing bug log on this issue] Closed as a duplicate, the issue remmains:

[Issue: 94090]

15
  • 1
    Looks like it may be partly Gravatar's fault. In the header for my image, they are sending Last-Modified: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:25:23 GMT. I think this is either the date I uploaded my old Gravatar, or the date I signed up for Gravatar. The browser must be seeing that and thinking "oh, this new file has the same last-modification date, so I'll just use the cached one still." It's a bug if Chrome is doing that on a refresh ignoring cache, but it's a bug for Gravatar to send the wrong last-modification as well. I've contacted both parties. :)
    – Kip
    Dec 31, 2009 at 16:16
  • 4
    I load scripts asynchronously from javascript, and Chrome seems to continue to use cached versions even after ctrl-f5, etc. Clearing the cache works. But another solution is to open an Incognito window (ctrl-shift-n), as it will Incognito mode will not use the cache.
    – Tauren
    Sep 20, 2011 at 7:36
  • 3
    Haha Chrome is super-cached, the only way I can overcome it is hitting Shift + F5 at least two times (really). Jun 4, 2012 at 10:15
  • 4
    Chrome team should be embarrassed at such a bug sitting in the bug queue for over 2 years. I am very disappointed. Oct 9, 2012 at 10:46
  • 3
    Definitely not working. Chrome can just suck so badly some times.
    – iconoclast
    Jun 18, 2013 at 17:43
224

In the opened developer tools (Ctrl+Shft+I or ++I):

  1. Select the Network tab
  2. Activate Disable cache check-box.
  3. DO NOT CLOSE Developer tools - otherwise cache is re-enabled.

enter image description here

7
  • 1
    Doesn't work for me, had to use incognito. Oct 18, 2012 at 14:48
  • 4
    But why is there no short-cut key to trigger this!
    – Paul C
    Nov 12, 2012 at 16:32
  • 8
    Note the cache is only disabled while Developer Tools are open. If you close it, your cache is active again.
    – Icode4food
    Dec 6, 2012 at 16:15
  • Even with activated Disable cache check box and open developer tools there still seems to be a difference between F5 and Shift+F5. An ajax call on my web page behaves differently, depending on the sort of refresh and I do not yet understand why.
    – Stefan
    Dec 17, 2015 at 14:52
  • 3
    In the newer developer tools (can be triggered by F12, too) the "Disable cache" setting can be found in the Network tab.
    – anre
    Apr 27, 2016 at 17:35
106

On a Mac, it's Shift+Command+R, or holding down Shift while clicking the reload button (as opposed to Command+R or a normal click for a regular refresh).

Some more details:

For Shift+Command+R, cache is simply ignored and resources are requested like no cache existed.

For Command+R, Chrome will issue If-Modified-Since or Etag requests to the web server, even for things that are actually cached. For most, if not all, content the server should then respond with 304 Not Modified. This is true for most, if not all, modern browsers.

The only way to force relying on the cache (without the browser even asking for possible changes) seems to be clicking a link on the web page, or by following a bookmarked link, or by going into the URL location bar and hitting Return there (Command+L, Return).

However: a longstanding known issue in Chrome, Chrome Forced Refresh does not ignore cache (and the more recent Reload/Refresh does not refresh), or maybe actually a feature in WebKit, Dynamically inserted subresources aren't revalidated even when the containing document is reloaded, makes Chrome not clear ALL related caches when using the above methods. A Chromium developer explains:

The network tab of the developer tools show a waterfall of all resources as they are loaded. There are two vertical lines at the right hand side... one of them is labeled "Load event fired" on hover. Anything loading after that point is not officially part of the page (a page can keep issuing requests for hours) [...] so it will NOT be "refreshed" with any combination of f5. This is by design.
[...]
Caching [of any resource, before and after the "Load event fired" line] is determined by the HTTP headers of the response, not by the time the request was issued.

Also note a @ChromiumDev's tweet:

Chrome DevTools' Disable Cache invalidates the disk cache (great for developing!), but.. only while devtools is visible.

4
  • Thanks for the great detailed answer. Possibly too technical for the audience but I value it greatly.
    – sholsinger
    Jun 15, 2011 at 16:17
  • Command-Shift-R is not working in current Chrome stable.
    – Olivier
    Mar 14, 2012 at 14:02
  • It seems to be working fine on my Mac, @olouv. Did you peek into the Developer Tool's Network tab? (True, on this very site there are a few resources for which Chrome still issues an If-Modified-Since request instead, but those resources are requested by JavaScript, not by the HTML parser. Also, as caching for the page itself is set to just one minute, maybe small differences in server time and local time might mess up too?)
    – Arjan
    Mar 14, 2012 at 18:03
  • BEWARE, note a two year old, but still current bug in Chrome: Chrome Forced Refresh does not ignore cache.
    – Arjan
    Sep 10, 2012 at 17:18
22

UPDATE: This answer is outdated

  1. Pull up console
  2. Click in right-bottom to cog icon
  3. Tick [General > Disable cache]
  4. Reload page (however)!
  5. Keep the developer tools open (UPDATE)

4
  • 14
    5. Keep the developer tools open.
    – Arjan
    Apr 1, 2013 at 19:55
  • Great, in fact, even after i closed the devtool, it always clear cache.
    – diyism
    Sep 3, 2014 at 9:34
  • This option is no longer in the console settings. Dec 4, 2019 at 19:39
  • I rolled back my own edit, as this actually duplicates Chris' March 2012 answer. Please consider deleting this; you'll keep the reputation anyway.
    – Arjan
    Apr 9, 2020 at 11:11
19

The question is a bit old, but in the recent version of Chrome

  • Open the Developer tools using F12 or Ctrl+Shift+I
  • Right-click the Refresh button, and select Empty cache and Hard reload

This will bypass the cache and reload the page fully.

The doc says Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 but unfortunately as of today the bug is still not solved :-(

4
  • 3
    Only works when Developer Tools are open, as you say Arjan.
    – mgkrebbs
    Nov 3, 2013 at 4:50
  • 1
    You can also hold SHIFT while clicking the refresh button
    – Bolli
    Jun 24, 2014 at 21:11
  • 2
    @Arjan Just FYI as of 2020 this is definitely not Windows-only, as I see the same feature on my Ubuntu VM.
    – Clonkex
    Apr 9, 2020 at 0:58
  • Also works on Edge Chromium (probably all Chrome based browers)
    – Alex
    Oct 16, 2020 at 11:42
10

I have files (images and full html pages) on the server that get updated and no key combination in chrome seems to force fetching them.

I rely on chrome´s incognito mode - CTRL-SHIFT-N - when I need to force refresh.

Note that CTRL-R or CTRL-F5 while inside an incognito window doesn´t seem to work either. You must close and reopen the incognito window - hence my reliance on shortcuts - CTRL-W to close, CTRL-SHIFT-N to reopen.

2
  • You mean "re-open a incognito tab", not window, I suppose?
    – mgol
    Oct 11, 2012 at 12:01
  • 1
    Interesting, for me CTRL-SHIFT-N opens a new window, not just a tab - is that not always the case? Oct 11, 2012 at 18:50
6

There definitely is no simple way to do this in Chrome like other browsers. The documentation may say that CTRL+F5 or SHIFT+F5 should reload and ignore cache, but it simply doesn't. I have a flash slideshow that stores the settings/configuration in an .xml file, and after updating the XML file, Chrome will still load the cached version unless I purge the cache. I always have to run another browser when updating the slideshow so I don't have to clear my Chrome cache all the time.

4
  • 5
    Flash cache is something completely different from Chrome.
    – Joshua
    Sep 2, 2010 at 5:13
  • @Joshua Unless as this guy states, it works in other browsers but not Chrome. Don't forget Chrome comes with its own build of Flash player. Jun 28, 2012 at 0:14
  • @CamiloMartin ... which also has its own separate cache. Wait... did you seriously respond to a post that's more than 2 years old? Ugh. I took the bait.
    – Joshua
    Jun 28, 2012 at 14:03
  • @Joshua Oh, you're right, I didn't realise :) Jun 30, 2012 at 16:03
6

Definitely a bug in Chrome - it's also images that should be changed, but it uses the old image instead, even after repeatedly hitting Ctrl + F5.

I was trying to change my Google Apps logo, but the only way it will change on Gmail is if I use incognito mode or clear the entire cache. Ctrl + F5 keeps the old logo.

5

Ctrl - Shift - Delete will allow you to remove cache for the previous hour. That will assure that the next time you reload a site it is fresh.

3

I did this: Right Click the FRAME (that was out of sync), and SHIFT clicked the "Reload Frame" option. The frame then refreshed properly.

1
  • Didn't work for me
    – Paul C
    Nov 12, 2012 at 16:31
3

To clear the explicitly specified application cache navigating to chrome://appcache-internals/ on chrome and removing the cache for specific web sites.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .