Until recently, I ran Firefox on my Mac with the cache disabled because I found it annoying that my tweaks weren’t updated when refreshing a work in progress. My usual Control/Command+F5 wouldn’t work for me. Being used to Firefox on Windows, I’d often forget and find myself powering up VoiceOver.
To clarify, on a Mac, Control+F5 is not a hard refresh as it is on Windows. In the majority of cases, the Command key replaces the Control key when converting Windows shortcuts to Mac ones. For example, Control+T to open a new tab under Windows is Command+T on a Mac.
Windows F5 Key
Sep 10, 2008 1 Refresh a internet browser window from the keyboard. 2 Refresh a Finder window from the keyboard. I just press F5 on Windows. I'd like to be able to avoid the mouse for it on Leopard as well. Anybody have shortcut or method? Click the Refresh button on the right hand side of the location bar container on the Navigation Toolbar or press 'Ctrl + R' or F5 to reload a web page. Reload web page(s) and bypass the cache. Press and hold Shift and left-click the Reload button. Press 'Ctrl + F5' or press 'Ctrl + Shift + R' (Windows,Linux) Press 'Cmd + Shift + R' (MAC).
Logic dictates that a hard refresh should be Command+F5 on my Mac. Indeed, the Firefox documentation on keyboard shortcuts shows that Command+F5 should refresh overriding the cache, but that loads VoiceOver for me (OS X 10.4 or later).
The long and short of it
How To Set F5 Key For Refresh Mac Screen
I now use Command+R for refresh and Command+Shift+R for when I need to do a hard refresh. As you’d expect, you can replace Command with Control for the Windows equivalent. And now I can turn my cache back on and save some time and bandwidth!
Of course, I could have set my own keyboard shortcuts! But then I’d have to set them up on all installations of Firefox I use.
What Does The F5 Key Do
Related reading
How To Make F5 Refresh
- OS X Browser Shortcut Cheat Sheet at The Apple Blog