Cloudflare is a popular choice for people that are looking to improve their site’s security and speed. They offer a free tier of service that can offer site owners a number of benefits, with the option to upgrade to one of the more advanced plans should you find that you need something not offered on the free plan.
One thing that Cloudflare can do is cache files from your website. This is commonly done on files that don’t change very often, and the caching function helps to load your site a little more quickly. But occasionally you will make changes to some of these files, leaving you looking for a way to clear the cached files in Cloudflare. The steps below will show you how to accomplish this.
How to Purge All Cache Files in Cloudflare
The steps in this article assume that you already have a Cloudflare account, and that you are interested in purging the cache files that are saved to Cloudflare’s servers. Note that this cache is separate from any WordPress cache that you might be using, such as WP Cache or W3TC Cache, so you will need to empty each cache separately. Additionally, many browsers will store cache files for your sites as well. So, for example, if you are making a CSS change and want to see how it looks after emptying your caches, then you may want to check in a private browsing session in a Web browser that you don’t use.
Step 1: Head over to cloudflare.com and sign into your account.
Step 2: Click the website for which you wish to empty the cache.
Step 3: Click the Caching tab at the top of the window.
Step 4: Click the Purge Everything button.
Step 5: Click the Purge Everything button to confirm that you wish to delete your cached files.
This process can take a little while to complete. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, you may still have files from your site cached locally in your Web browser. You should check the site in a private window in a different browser to see the results of your changes.
If you are just learning about Cloudflare and getting a feel for how it works, check out our guide on configuring a Hostgator site with Cloudflare. It’s a streamlined process that can provide a great benefit to many site owners.