How to Hard Refresh a Page in Chrome

A page you are working on or waiting for shows an old version. A normal reload can pull files from Chrome's cache, so the stale copy comes right back. A hard refresh tells Chrome to fetch everything from the server again.

Press Ctrl + Shift + R

Press Ctrl + Shift + R (Mac: Cmd + Shift + R). On Windows and Linux, Ctrl + F5 does the same. Holding Shift while clicking the reload button next to the address bar also works. Chrome reloads the page and skips its cache for the page itself and for every script, stylesheet, and image the page loads.

Open DevTools if that is not enough

Some files are fetched later by JavaScript and can still come from cache, and service workers can hand back stored copies. Press F12 (Mac: Cmd + Option + I) or right-click the page and choose Inspect. While DevTools is open, the reload button gains extra options.

Right-click the reload button

With DevTools open, right-click the reload button to the left of the address bar. Pick Empty Cache and Hard Reload. Chrome empties its cache, then reloads with nothing cached. The same menu offers Normal Reload and Hard Reload if you want the lighter versions.

Disable cache while DevTools is open

If you are refreshing over and over, open the Network tab in DevTools and tick Disable cache. Every reload bypasses the cache for as long as DevTools stays open, so a plain F5 (Mac: Cmd + R) is enough from then on. Close DevTools and caching goes back to normal.

A CDN can still serve the old file. A hard refresh only bypasses your own browser's cache. If the site sits behind a CDN or a caching proxy, that layer may keep handing out the old version until its own copy expires or someone purges it from the hosting side. If the page is still stale after the steps above, the problem is upstream of your browser.