You always hear that you need to clear your cache to fix issues with your device. Clearing your cache seems like a magical solution to all your problems. But have you ever wondered what exactly happens when you clear your cache? In this article, we will discuss what a cache is and how to clear it on your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.

In essence, cache is data. But it is not personal and stored data. Instead, it is data that apps use to run faster on your system. A cache is a separate location that an app creates to store its own data. That is why every app’s cache is different.

Apps use their cached data to run faster, load pages faster, and generally give you a smoother experience. In an age of impatience, the size of the average cache is increasing. The larger your cached data, the faster your system will run. This means that the system (or app) has the information ready to fetch at any time, instead of generating that information from scratch.

For example, when a web page is loaded by a browser, the browser stores information about that page. It may even store images on the page in its cache. The next time you load that web page, it will load significantly faster because of the cached information. That is not to say that the web page would not load without a cache, but that it will load much faster because of the cached information.