CSS file not refreshing in browser

A good way to force your CSS to reload is to:

<link href='styles.css?version=1' rel='stylesheet'></link>

And then just increment the version number as you change your CSS. The browser will then obey. I believe Stack Overflow uses this technique.

Try opening the style sheet itself (by entering its address into the browser's address bar) and pressing F5. If it still doesn't refresh, your problem lies elsewhere.

If you update a style sheet and want to make sure it gets refreshed in every visitor's cache, a very popular method to do that is to add a version number as a GET parameter. That way, the style sheet gets refreshed when necessary, but not more often than that.

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css?version=51">

I always use Ctrl+Shift+F5 out of habit, it should force a full-refresh including by-passing any http proxies you may be going through.

The fix is called "hard refresh" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bypass_your_cache

In most Windows and Linux browsers: Hold down Ctrl and press F5.

In Apple Safari: Hold down ⇧ Shift and click the Reload toolbar button.

In Chrome and Firefox for Mac: Hold down both ⌘ Cmd+⇧ Shift and press R.