While troubleshooting an issue, you may be advised to clear your site’s cache. This guide will explain how to clear the cache on your website.
This feature is available on sites with the WordPress.com Creator and Entrepreneur plans, and the legacy Pro plan. For sites on the free, Starter, and Explorer plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.
In this guide
In simplified terms, the cache is where data about your site is temporarily stored to deliver it more quickly the next time it is requested.
This guide covers server-side website caching, which you can flush on plugin-enabled plans. If you have a lower-level plan, it is not possible or necessary to clear your site’s cache (as the cache is cleared automatically.) If you’re experiencing a cache-related issue, you may need to clear your browser cache instead. Learn how to clear your browser cache here.
Clearing your site’s cache can lead to degraded performance and slower loading times for you and your visitors while the cache is rebuilt. To avoid a performance drop, the server-side cache should be only cleared in rare circumstances. It is not a tool for optimizing your site’s speed. If everything on your site is performant and well-coded, clearing your site’s cache should not be necessary.
To clear the cache on your WordPress.com website, take the following steps:
- Ensure your site has a plugin-enabled plan.
- On lower-level plans, the cache is flushed periodically on your site automatically. It is not possible to manually clear the site’s cache, nor is it necessary to do so.
- Visit your site’s dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings → Hosting Configuration (if using Default View) or Hosting → Configuration (if using WP-Admin).
- Scroll down to the Cache section:
- Click the “Clear cache” button to start the process.
- Wait a moment until you receive the message “Successfully cleared WordPress cache.”
- Once the cache is cleared, the “Clear cache” button will be disabled for one minute, and you will see the message “You cleared the cache recently. Please wait a minute and try again.”
Global edge cache can deliver your site faster by storing content physically closer to end users on our global network. You can toggle this option on or off using the “Enable global edge caching for faster content delivery” option.
When the global edge cache is enabled, this cache is also cleared when clicking the Clear cache button.
This feature is not available on sites with privacy settings set to Coming Soon or Private.
If your site has a plugin-enabled plan, you may run into a recommendation from a plugin to clear your WordPress.com site’s cache as a troubleshooting step.
They commonly recommend a caching plugin, but these plugins are incompatible with WordPress.com because we automatically provide server-side caching for your site. Instead, you can manually clear your site’s cache by following the steps above.