How Do You Refresh on a Mac?
Pressing F5 is a well-known shortcut for refreshing a web browser, website, or webpage on Windows platforms, but using this shortcut on a Mac produces a different result. Instead of using F5, Command+R (or cmd+r) is the shortcut you’ll want to use to perform a refresh on Mac platforms. Of course, this applies to the majority of Mac web browsers, too. Sometimes, a standard refresh isn’t enough to fix a web page that isn’t displaying correctly or shows outdated information. In this case, you’ll want to try a hard refresh. A hard refresh forces the web browser to clear its local copy of the webpage (cache) and download the latest version from the site server. To perform a hard refresh, you’ll need to modify the standard Command+R input, but the key combination will be a bit different depending on which browser you use.
Safari and Opera: Press Command+Option+RChrome, Firefox, and Edge: Press Shift+Command+R
You can also perform a hard refresh by holding the Shift key and clicking the refresh button on your browser.
Where Is the Refresh Button on a Mac?
In addition to the cmd+r shortcut, most Mac browsers include a refresh button in their toolbar. Here’s where you’ll find the refresh button on a selection of Mac browsers:
Safari
To the right of the address bar:
Google Chrome
To the left of the address bar:
Firefox
To the left of the address bar and home page icon:
Microsoft Edge
To the left of the address bar:
What Is the F5 Key on Mac?
Rather than refresh web pages, the F5 key on a Mac typically decreases your keyboard’s brightness (if it’s backlit). You’ll typically only see this on compatible MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. Otherwise, it does nothing.
How Do I Refresh My Mac Desktop?
In addition to browsers, you can use the Command+R shortcut to refresh many Mac apps, such as the Mac App Store. One notable exception is Mac’s file system manager (called the Finder), which doesn’t have a direct refresh button. Unfortunately, this also means you can’t use a keyboard shortcut to refresh Finder, which can be annoying if, for example, you just added new files to a folder and Finder isn’t displaying them. Fortunately, there is a workaround to this issue. You can use the Back button (<-) followed by the Forward button (->) in the top left of the Finder app, which should refresh the contents of a folder. If that doesn’t work, you can use Command+Option+Escape (ESC) to Force Quit the app.
