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When you change a DNS record (move a site, switch nameservers, swap an MX), your computer keeps serving the old answer until its local cache expires. Flushing the cache forces a fresh lookup against your resolver. Useful right after you’ve made a change and don’t want to wait the TTL out, or when a site loads the wrong server even though dig from a public resolver returns the correct record.

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Before you begin

  • DNS caches at multiple layers: your browser, your OS, your router, your ISP, and any intermediate resolvers in between. Flushing your OS cache only clears the layer on your machine.
  • If the upstream resolver still hands you the old record, the only fix is time (wait the previous TTL) or switching your machine to a public resolver like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8.
  • Browser-internal DNS caches are separate from the OS cache. After flushing the OS, also clear the browser’s cache, covered further down.

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Flush the OS cache

Open the Terminal (Spotlight, then “Terminal”) and run:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
Enter your admin password when prompted. There’s no success message; the command returns silently when it works.
macOS 10.6 and earlier only need sudo dscacheutil -flushcache. The mDNSResponder half is what 10.7 and up actually use; running both is harmless and works across every version Apple still ships.

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Clear the browser DNS cache

Browsers cache resolved hostnames separately from the OS. Even after flushing the OS cache, the browser keeps using its own copy until you clear it or restart the app.
Navigate to chrome://net-internals/#dns and click Clear host cache, then go to chrome://net-internals/#sockets and click Flush socket pools. Same flow on Edge (edge://net-internals/#dns) and Brave (brave://net-internals/#dns).

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Verify the flush worked

Resolve the hostname you just updated and confirm the new IP comes back. From any shell: 
nslookup yourdomain.com
For a tighter check against multiple resolvers: 
dig @1.1.1.1 yourdomain.com +short
dig @8.8.8.8 yourdomain.com +short
If those return the new value but your browser still hits the old server, the browser cache is still stale. Re-flush with the steps above and load the site in incognito or private mode for a clean check. For an in-cPanel diagnostic that runs the lookup from the server itself, see Track DNS.

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Common issues

Three more layers above the OS: the browser cache (clear it, or use incognito), an intermediate proxy or VPN (disable temporarily and retry), and your router (restart as a last resort). If dig resolves to the new IP correctly but the page renders the old content, it’s likely the site’s own CDN or page cache, not DNS at all. Purge the CDN and any WordPress, LiteSpeed, or Cloudflare cache layers.
The Command Prompt isn’t elevated. Close it, right-click Command Prompt, pick Run as administrator, and retry.
Your distro doesn’t run systemd-resolved. Try sudo systemctl restart nscd or sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq instead. If neither service is installed, your OS isn’t caching DNS locally and there’s nothing to flush.
The change hasn’t propagated yet. Public resolvers honour the previous record’s TTL, so if the old TTL was 24 hours, downstream caches can hold the old answer for up to 24 hours. Lower the TTL on records before the next change so future swaps are faster.
The cPanel server’s own DNS sometimes lags external resolvers. Track DNS runs the lookup from inside the server so you can see what cPanel itself sees. The Zone Editor is where the records live if you need to confirm what’s actually published.

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These guides were ported from our legacy knowledgebase by AI, then reviewed and extensively tested by humans before publication to ensure the migration went through smoothly.