Maybe you knew, maybe not, but Google Chrome has three different ways to reload a web page : normal loading, forced loading, and forced loading with cache emptying.

All can be started with the same reload button that appears next to the Chrome address bar, only you have to follow a couple of additional steps to do it in the last two cases. We are going to explain these steps and tell you what these two types of recharging are normal for you.

Normally we use a web reload for the same reasons: we want to see the latest changes made, or the web has not loaded well at all and we hope that refreshing it will look good again.

Chrome includes three options that can be useful in different cases:

The normal charge

It is activated by pressing the reload button in the browser or by pressing the classic F5shortcut in Windows or CMD + R in macOS.

When we use this type of reload Chrome uses the cache stored in the browser and all it does is validate that cache to confirm that it has not changed since the last load.

The forced load

To reload a page forcefully you need to use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + R or SHIFT + F5 in Windows, and SHIFT + CMD + R in macOS , you can also press the SHIFT key before clicking on the reload button .

This type of load ignores the cache of the page stored in the browser and loads all resources directly from the web server again.

It is very useful if you want to immediately see the changes made to a page that are not yet registered because the browser keeps loading what was stored in the cache.

Forced load + cache dump

For this option there is no keyboard shortcut and you need to open the tools for Chrome developers first .

To do this you can click on the Chrome menu button (the three points) go to More tools and then choose Developer Tools . You can also simply press CTRL + SHIFT + F12 on Windows or ALT + CMD + I on macOS.

Once open, right click on the reload button and you will see a pop-up menu with the three different types of load available, including one to empty the cache and make a forced load.

This method is useful in situations in which a web page downloads additional content using JavaScript, for example, content that is not part of the initial load of the page and that can consequently be part of the cache even when you do a forced load, empty all the cache is useful in a scenario like this.

Forced loading in other browsers

Firefox also has an option to do forced recharge. In Windows it is activated by pressing CTRL + F5 or by holding down CTRL and SHIFT and then pressing R.

In macOS it is activated by holding down SHIFT and then clicking on the reload button . Or, holding down CMD and SHIFT and then pressing R.

In Opera it is enough to press CTLR + F5 or SHIFT + F5, it also works by holding down CTRL or SHIFT and then clicking on the reload button.

Safari allows you to do it also by pressing the SHIFT key and then clicking on the reload button.