Internet Cache and History

Information Technology
Services

Home | About | Undergraduate | Graduate | Prospective | Current | Athletics | Alumni | Faculty/Staff

I. T. Services

For Faculty/Staff

I. T. Services Policies and Procedures

Frequently Asked Questions

Projects and their current status

About Us and Contacts

Clearing the files Netscape and Internet Explorer leave on your hard drive

(Internet Cache and History)

Internet Explorer cleanup
Netscape cleanup

What is the Internet Cache?

Your Internet cache is in the Temporary Internet Files folder on your hard disk. This is where Web pages and files (such as graphics) are stored as you view them. This speeds up the display of pages you frequently visit or have already seen, because it is faster to open them from your hard disk than from the Web. The downside of this is that it takes up space on your hard disk, and it can sometime cause problems in loading a page that you have visited many times before.

What is the Internet History?

Your Internet history is a record of all the sites you have visited. This option gives you the ability to see what sites you have visited. If you visited a site and don't know what the name of the site is, you can try to find it in your history. After a certain number of days, this history will be cleaned out.

Cleanup of Internet Explorer

To clean up the Internet cache and history in IE, you will need to open up Microsoft Internet Explorer.

You should have a menu, as shown above. On the menu you will need to go to Tools.
After clicking on the Tools menu button, you should have a drop down menu as shown below.

From this menu you will need to click on Internet Options...
The Internet Options will open in a new window. The window should look like the one below.

From Internet Options, you have to ability to set options in IE. You will be able to set your home page location, clean up temporary internet files, and clean your history.
To clean up the Internet cache, click on the Delete Files... button as shown in the picture below.

After you click on Delete Files..., a Delete Files window will show up. In this window you need to click the box Delete all offline content; this will make sure all of the cache is cleaned up. After this box has been checked, you are ready to click on the OK button. This will remove all of the cache files.

The next option you can look at under Internet Options is History.

You can change the number of days IE keeps your history. You can also clean out all of your history files by clicking on the Clear History button.

After you click on the Clear History button, it will ask you if you are ready to delete the history. Click OK to delete the files.

Cleanup for Netscape

To clean up the Internet cache and history in Netscape, you will need to open up Netscape. Go to the Edit menu and go down to Preferences... as shown in the picture below.

After you click on Preferences..., a new window will pop up. It should look like the one below.

In this window, you will have the option to change Netscape settings. You can change your home page, and clear the cache, history and even the location bar.
The picture below shows the History settings, with which you can change the length of time Netscape keeps the history. To clean the history, click on the Clear History button.

After you click Clear History, a pop up message will show up asking you if you want to delete the history. Click OK to delete the history.

After the history is cleaned, you can choose the Location Bar History under the Preferences menu. Click on Clear Location Bar.

After you click Clear Location Bar, a pop up message will show up asking you if you want to delete the Location Bar History. Click OK to delete the history.

To get to the Netscape cache, you will need to click on the [+] beside Advanced, on the left side of the window. This will give you more options to choose from. Click on Cache. It will show all of the options for your internet cache.
You will be able to set its size, clean it, and change its location and how often the documents are cached. The windows should look like the one below.

Click on the Clear Memory Cache button. This will clear all of the memory that Netscape uses for cache. The picture below is the pop up message you will see when you click on Clear Memory Cache. Click OK to empty the cache.

Click on the Clear Disk Cache button. This will clean all of the Netscape cache files. The picture below is the pop up message you will see when you click on Clear Disk Cache. Click OK to empty the cache.

Shepherd University | I. T. Services | P.O. Box 5000 | Shepherdstown, WV | 25443-5000
User Support Desk 304-876-5457 | Main Number 304-876-5245 | email: support@shepherd.edu