In order to get the most of of brightwheel and ensure you have access to all the latest features and communications sent by the brightwheel team - performing a hard refresh (at least once a week) on the browser you use to access brightwheel is vital! Our platform will automatically prompt you to perform a refresh every 30 days if you haven't done so, but going this long without refreshing is not recommended.
Refresh vs. Hard Refresh
Refresh and Hard Refresh are often used interchangeably. However, they are different. A hard refresh clears the browser cache for a specific page, ensuring the latest version from the server is fetched, while a normal refresh may still display older content if changes are minor.
To perform a normal refresh, in most browsers on PC and Mac, you can simply click the
icon in the browser's toolbar.
How to Perform a Hard Refresh
To perform a hard refresh and clear your browser's cache, perform the appropriate keyboard action for your browser that is outlined below.
Browser | Keyboard Shortcut |
Chrome, Firefox, or Edge for Windows | Press Ctrl+F5 (If that doesn't work, try Shift+F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R) |
Chrome or Firefox for Mac | Press Shift+Command+R |
Safari for Mac | There is no simple keyboard shortcut to force a hard refresh. Instead, press Command+Option+E to empty the cache, then hold down Shift and click the |
Safari for iPhone and iPad | There is no shortcut to force a cache refresh. Access your devices settings to erase your browser's cache. |
After a hard refresh, the webpage will go blank and reloading will take longer as the browser redownloads all data and images.
If you're having trouble accessing a new feature or seeing communications from our team in your account, try the steps above first! If the issue(s) persist, contact our Support team.