Clearing your browser's cache and history

Running out of disk space? Your browser keeps loading an out-of-date page or image? Your browser taking longer to load or exit? Need to erase the tracks of where you've been on the web?

Almost all web browsers maintain a local copy of web pages and other related items on your disk or memory to speedup reloading of previously visited pages from the Internet. This time saver may get bigger and slower over long periods of time. If this is causing problems, try clearing your browser cache as follows.

Clearing the cache

IE 5.x or 6.x for Windows

1. Click the Tools menu on your browser
2. Select Internet Options
3. In the General tab, and under the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Temporary Internet Files
4. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog.

IE 4.x for Windows

1. Click the View menu on your browser
2. Select Internet Options
3. In the General tab, and under the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Temporary Internet Files
4. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Select Tools, then Options from the main menu
2. Change to the Privacy tab
3. Under Cache click on Clear to clear memory and disk cache

Netscape 4.x and up for Windows, Mac and Linux

1. Click the Edit menu on your browser
2. Select Preferences
3. Click on the + next to Advanced
4. Select Cache
5. Select Clear Memory Cache
6. Click Clear Disk Cache
7. Click OK

IE 4.5 & 5 for Mac OS 8 & 9

1. Click the Edit menu on your browser
2. Select Preferences
3. Choose Advanced from the Web browser heading on the left side
4. In the Cache section, click the Empty Now button
5. Click OK

IE 5 for Mac OS X

1. Click the Explorer menu on your browser
2. Select Preferences
3. Choose Advanced from the Web browser heading on the left side
4. In the Cache section, click the Empty Now button
5. Click OK

Netscape Communicator/Navigator 6.0 for Windows

1. Click Edit, and select Preferences on the Netscape menu bar
2. Click Advanced
3. Click Cache
4. Select the Clear Memory Cache button
5. Click the Clear Disk Cache button
6. Click OK

The AOL^® software stores a cache separate from Internet Explorer so it may be necessary to clear the cache for both.

To clear the browser cache using AOL^® System Information:

1. On the end of the Windows^® taskbar next to the clock, right-click the AOL^® icon in the system tray, then click System Information.
2. Click the Utilities tab.
3. Click the Clear or Clear Browser Cache button.
4. Click the Close button.

Note: Clearing the cache through the AOL System Information will clear the cache for both Internet Explorer and the AOL software.

To clear your browser cache through Internet Explorer:

1. Click the Start button, select Programs or All Programs, then click Internet Explorer.
2. Click the Tools menu, then click Internet Options....
3. Click the General tab.
4. Click the Delete Files button.
5. Click the Delete all offline content box to place a check mark in it.
6. Click the OK button.

AOL 5.0 for Windows

1. Click MY AOL, and select Preferences on the AOL menu bar
2. Click the Internet Properties (WWW) button
3. Click the General tab
4. Click Delete Files
5. Click OK

AOL 6.0 – 8.0 for Windows

1. Click Settings, and select Preferences on the AOL menu bar.
2. If you are signed on to AOL, scroll down the By AOL Feature tab, and click Internet Settings. If you are not signed on to AOL, click Internet Properties (WWW).
3. On the General tab in the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete Files. Note: Select Delete all offline content to remove Web material you have saved for off-line review.
4. Click OK.

AOL for Mac

1. Click Members
2. Click Preferences
3. Scroll down to Web
4. Click Empty Cache

Note for AOL users: If clearing your browser's cache does not help and you are using AOL, the problem is most likely due to AOL's use of what is called a proxy server cache.

A proxy server is a server between a client application, such as your Web browser, and a real server (in this case, High Desert Web's). It intercepts all requests to our server to see if it can fulfil the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to our server.

What that means is that, instead of sending the web site information directly from our server to your computer, AOL's proxy server intercepts the site pages, says "Oh, I already have this information, and instead of sending it to you from High Desert Web's server, I'll just send it from mine." What AOL doesn't realize is that the information has changed since the last time it was retrieved, and it keeps showing the old page and images stored in its proxy server, until their server is updated. AOL claims that their proxy cache is updated every 24 hours, so it may be just a matter of waiting and trying again.

Mozilla and Netscape for Mac and Linux

1. From the Menu, select Edit and choose Preferences
   OS X Customers: select Mozilla and choose Preferences
2. In the window that opens, you will see a list of triangles and topics
3. Click the triangle next to Advanced and then select Cache
4. From here, click the Clear Disk Cache and Clear Memory Cache buttons
5. Select OK

Clearing the history

At all times, Windows keeps a history of all web pages that you visit while online. You may want to delete the record of web pages you have visited. It is a very simple process which will not in any way affect your computer other than to erase the fact that you have visited certain pages.

How to clear your computer's history of web pages you have visited (Windows 95 and higher):

1. Click the tab marked History in the toolbar of Internet Explorer.
2. Your web pages visited history will appear on the left.
3. Under today's pages, highlight the names of pages you wish to remove from the history and hit the delete key on your keyboard on each page name highlighted.
4. Exit your Internet browser. This method will only delete the selected pages.
5. To clear all of your history, follow steps 1 and 2 above then push button that says Clear History. The computer will ask if you are sure you want to do this, press Yes.

If you have Windows 3.1 or older you will have to follow these steps instead:

1. On your Internet browser click on Tools
2. Click Internet Options
3. In the section called Temporary Internet Files, click Delete Files then click OK
4. In the section called History, click Delete History then click OK

Back to Main Help Page

NOTE: This method will delete all pages visited since history began.