How to clear the DNS cache on your computer

many computer operating systems use caching to store dns lookup results normally this is not a problem and accelerates network performance however, when you are developing a website or configuring domain settings, your computer’s dns cache can get in the way, preventing you from accessing the correct site to clear the dns cache, follow the appropriate procedure below for your computer’s operating system or web browser windows operating systems to clear the dns cache on microsoft windows, follow these steps open a dos command window to do this, click start, click run, type cmd, and then press enter at the command prompt, type the following command and then press enter\ ipconfig /flushdns the dns cache is now clear mac os x operating systems to clear the dns cache on apple mac os x, follow these steps open a terminal window to do this, click applications, click utilities, and then click terminal at the command prompt, type the appropriate command for your mac os x version to clear the cache for os x yosemite v10 10 4 or later, type the following command\ sudo killall hup mdnsresponder for os x yosemite v10 10 through v10 10 3, type the following command\ sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache for os x mavericks, mountain lion, and lion, type the following command\ sudo killall hup mdnsresponder for mac os x snow leopard, type the following command\ sudo dscacheutil flushcache the dns cache is now clear linux operating systems many linux distributions do not use dns caching at the operating system level instead, applications (such as web browsers) maintain their own internal caches to clear an application’s dns cache, often all you need to do is restart the application if your linux computer does use a dns caching service, however, consult its documentation for instructions about how to clear the cache google chrome browser the google chrome web browser maintains its own internal dns cache to clear it, follow these steps start google chrome in the address bar, type chrome //net internals/#dns google chrome displays a list of hosts in its internal dns cache click clear host cache in the address bar, type chrome //net internals/#sockets click close idle sockets, and then click flush socket pools