Your web browser saves (“caches”) copies of images, scripts, and other page elements so sites load faster on repeat visits. Occasionally this stored data goes stale and causes problems — a chapter page not showing recent edits, a form not working correctly, or a site looking broken or out of date. Clearing your cache forces the browser to download a fresh copy of the site and often resolves these issues.
Before you start:
- Clearing your cache will sign you out of most websites you’re logged into, since login sessions are often stored alongside cache data.
- If you only want to fix one misbehaving site, look for a “clear data for this site” option in the steps below rather than clearing everything — it’s faster and doesn’t sign you out elsewhere.
- When in doubt, choose All time as the time range so you know the stale data is really gone.
Find your browser below.
Google Chrome
- Click the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner.
- Select Delete browsing data.
- Choose a time range — select All time to be thorough.
- Make sure Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files are checked.
- Click Delete data.
Shortcut: Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac) to jump straight to this screen.
Mozilla Firefox
- Click the menu button (☰, three lines) in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings.
- Click Privacy & Security in the left-hand panel.
- Scroll to Cookies and Site Data and click Clear Data….
- Check Cached Web Content (and Cookies and Site Data if you also want to sign out of sites).
- Click Clear.
Tip: You can also type about:preferences#privacy directly into the address bar to jump to this settings page.
Safari (Mac)
Safari has two options depending on how thorough you want to be:
Quick method (clears cache, cookies, and history):
- Click Safari in the top menu bar, then Settings.
- Click the Privacy tab.
- Click Manage Website Data….
- Click Remove All, then confirm.
Cache-only method (leaves cookies and logins intact):
- Click Safari → Settings → Advanced.
- Check Show features for web developers (this adds a “Develop” menu).
- Click the new Develop menu in the menu bar and select Empty Caches.
Shortcut: Option+Command+E empties the cache once the Develop menu is enabled.
Brave
- Click the menu icon (☰ or ⋮) in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings.
- Click Privacy and security in the left sidebar.
- Click Clear browsing data.
- Choose a time range — All time is recommended.
- Check Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
- Click Clear data.
Shortcut: Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac), or type brave://settings/clearBrowserData into the address bar.
Microsoft Edge
- Click the three-dot menu (⋯) in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings.
- Click Privacy, search, and services.
- Under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear.
- Select a time range — All time is recommended.
- Check Cookies and other site data and Cached images and files.
- Click Clear now.
Shortcut: Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac), or type edge://settings/clearbrowserdata into the address bar.
Island
Island is a Chromium-based enterprise browser, so its steps look similar to Chrome’s:
- Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of Island.
- Click History (or press
Cmd+Y). - Click Delete Browsing Data in the top-left corner.
- Choose the timeframe you’d like to delete.
- Click Delete Data.
Comet
Comet is Perplexity’s Chromium-based browser, so its steps also mirror Chrome’s:
- Click the menu icon in the top-right corner and select Settings.
- Click Privacy and security.
- Click Delete browsing data.
- Choose a time range and select the data types to remove (include Cached images and files).
- Confirm the deletion.
Tip: You can also type comet://settings/privacy into the address bar to jump straight to Privacy settings.
Still having issues after clearing your cache?
- Try a hard refresh on the page giving you trouble:
Ctrl+Shift+R(Windows) orCmd+Shift+R(Mac). This reloads just that page without using cached files. - Try opening the site in a private/incognito window, which never uses cached data.
- If the problem persists after clearing your cache, submit a support request so we can take a closer look.