How Do You Refresh an App? iPhone and Android Steps

How do you refresh an app? On a phone, start with the gesture most apps build in. Drag the screen down from the top of a feed, inbox, or list and let go. The app fetches whatever is new. If nothing changes, quit the app and open it again. On an iPhone with Face ID, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause in the middle, find the app, and swipe up on its preview. On Android, swipe up from the bottom, hold, let go, then swipe up on the app. Tap the icon to reopen it.

That handles the ordinary stall. The rest of this page is the longer ladder for when it doesn't, on both platforms, ordered by what each step erases. The order is mine; the paths are Apple's and Google's. The first four rungs erase nothing. The last three do, and Apple and Google both say so on their own pages, which is why they sit at the bottom.

Refresh Means Three Different Things

The word covers three separate actions, and the questions Google attaches to this search mix them up. Sorting them out first saves a wrong turn.

The first is the pull-down gesture inside an app. It asks the app to check for new content right now. Nothing closes.

The second is quitting the app and opening it again. This is what most "refresh an app" guides mean, and it's the one Apple's app not responding page puts first, under the heading "Close and reopen the app." The app starts over from scratch.

The third is a setting called Background App Refresh, which is the answer to "where is app refresh in Settings?" It lives under Settings, General, Background App Refresh on an iPhone. Apple's app switching page describes it as letting suspended apps "check for updates and new content." It's a permission for apps to fetch things while you're not looking. It isn't a button that fixes a frozen app, and I'd leave it alone until the last section.

On a computer, "refresh" usually means reloading a web page, and there's a real key for it. That's further down too.

The Ladder, on Both Platforms

Every rung below comes from Apple's or Google's own troubleshooting pages, with the path as each vendor wrote it on the fetch date. Pixel labels are shown for Android with the Samsung equivalents in brackets, because those are the two Android paths I could verify from a vendor page. Other brands put the same controls in slightly different places.

Read the fourth column before you touch anything on rungs 5 to 7. The table is the whole method; the sections below are the detail for each rung, and the reasons the order is what it is.

Rungs 1 to 4 Erase Nothing

Pull down. Not every app has it, and the ones that do don't advertise it. Drag the list down from the top with one finger until a spinner appears, then let go. If the app is a feed, an inbox, or a list of anything that updates, that's the refresh. I'd try it twice and no more. If the screen won't move at all, skip to rung 2, because a frozen app can't run the gesture.

Quit and reopen. Apple's close an app page gives the path by model. On iPhone X and later, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause in the middle, swipe to the app, then swipe up on its preview. On an iPhone SE, iPhone 8, or earlier, double-click the Home button instead. Reopen from the Home Screen or App Library. Google's find and close apps page gives the Android gesture as swipe up from the bottom, hold, let go, then swipe up on the app, and notes that on Android Go with three-button navigation you tap Recent apps instead. What you might lose is anything you typed into the app and hadn't saved. That's it.

Restart the phone. Apple's own line on the quit and reopen page is that if the app is still unresponsive after quitting and reopening, restart the iPhone. The restart page has the buttons by model. On an iPhone X or later, hold the side button and either volume button until the slider appears, drag it, wait 30 seconds, then hold the side button until the logo. If the phone itself won't respond to that, Apple's force restart page is a quick press of volume up, a quick press of volume down, then hold the side button until the logo. I'd keep the force restart for a dead screen; the plain restart is enough for a stuck app. Google's fix an installed app page says to hold Power for about 30 seconds or until the phone restarts, and, more usefully, to restart after every later step to see whether it worked.

Update the app, then the system. Apple's page says to open the App Store, tap your profile icon, tap App Updates, and if nothing is waiting for the app, update iOS. The App Store updates apps on its own by default, so an app that's behind is a clue in itself. On Android the path is the Play Store, the profile icon, then Manage apps & devices. The iPhone update guide and the Android update guide both cover what to do when the Update button never appears.

Four rungs, nothing lost. My expectation is that most stalls are gone before the end of rung 3, and the honest answer to "how do you refresh an app" for most people is rung 1 or 2. Everything past here is a trade.

Quit an App When It Misbehaves, Then Leave It Alone

Both vendors say the same thing about the swipe-up gesture, and it's worth quoting because every phone shop counter has an opinion on it.

Apple's close-an-app page says "You should close an app only if it's unresponsive," and adds that closing all your apps "does not impact your device's overall performance." Its quit-and-reopen page says that quitting apps you're not using "doesn't prolong battery life." Google's page has the same tip in fewer words. Even if you don't close apps, you won't run out of memory or battery.

There's a cost the other way, and it's the one that matters for this search. Apple's app switching page says that if you quit an app from the App Switcher, "it might not be able to run or check for new content before you open it again." So an app that's swiped away every night is an app that opens stale every morning, and the stale content is what sends people to this page. Quit an app when it misbehaves. Otherwise I'd let it be, and this is the reason I don't recommend clearing the switcher every night.

Clear Cache and Clear Data Are Not the Same Button

This is the rung people get wrong, and only Android has it.

Google's free up space page draws the line in two sentences. Clear cache "deletes temporary data," and "some apps may be slow the next time you open them." Clear storage "permanently deletes all app data," and Google adds, "Try to delete the data within the app first." The Pixel page gives the path for both. Settings, Apps, See all apps, the app, then Storage & cache, where Clear cache and Clear storage sit next to each other.

Samsung's Galaxy page uses Settings, Apps, the app, Storage, then Clear cache or Clear data, and its warning is plainer than Google's. Clearing the data "will reset the app to factory default settings. Any personal settings or data saved on the app will be removed." It also says to have your accounts and usernames written down first so you can sign back in. I'd add the two-factor method for that account to the list, because a reset app is a fresh sign-in.

Clear cache first, always. Google calls it "a short-term solution" that builds up again, which is fine. The point here is to remove a bad temporary file, and any freed space is a side effect. Restart, test the app. Only if the fault survives do I clear data, and only after the accounts are written down.

What iPhone Has Instead

An iPhone has no per-app Clear cache button. Apple's storage page says cached and temporary data "might not count as usage" in the app list, and offers two actions when you tap an app under Settings, General, iPhone Storage. Offload the app, which "frees up storage used by the app, but keeps its documents and data." Or delete the app, "which removes the app and its related data."

Offload is the gentler of the two and it's the one I'd reach for first, since it's the closest iPhone equivalent to clearing a cache. The app itself is replaced and your documents stay. The icon stays on the Home Screen with a cloud symbol, per Apple's storage guide, and tapping it reinstalls. There's an automatic version under Settings, Apps, App Store, Offload Unused Apps, but that's a storage tool, and the phone storage guide is where it belongs.

Delete is last for a reason Apple states twice. The app-not-responding page says "you might lose data that was stored in the app," and the delete apps page adds that deleting an app "doesn't automatically cancel in-app subscriptions." My rule before deleting is that whatever the app holds has to exist somewhere else first, and I check whether it bills me. Then touch and hold, Remove App, Delete App, and redownload through the App Store's Apps & Purchase History list under "Not on this iPhone."

If the app still fails after a clean reinstall, the app is the problem. Apple's page ends with "contact the app developer," and Google's says the same for a single app that fails while others work. That's the stop condition. Reinstalling a second time won't produce a different result.

Refresh on a Computer

The "on pc" search and three of the attached questions are about a refresh button, and phones don't have one. Computers do.

In a browser, the refresh icon is the arrow bent into a circle at the left end of the address bar. On Windows, Chrome's shortcut list gives F5 or Ctrl+R to reload the page, and Shift+F5 or Ctrl+Shift+R to reload while ignoring cached content, which is the browser's version of rung 5. On a Mac, Apple's Safari page says View, Reload Page, or Command-R, and if Safari won't quit, Option-Command-Esc forces it to. Microsoft's shortcut list has F5 as "Refresh the active window" outside the browser too, which is why it works in File Explorer. F5 is the key I'd press first on any Windows screen that looks out of date.

For an installed Windows app that misbehaves, Microsoft's repair page has a two-step ladder of its own. Start, Settings, Apps, Installed apps, the More icon beside the app, Advanced options, then Repair. Only if Repair is missing or doesn't help, Reset. Microsoft warns that not every app shows those options. Repair is rung 5. Reset is rung 6.

Questions Google Attaches to This Search

Where is app refresh in Settings? Settings, General, Background App Refresh on an iPhone. Tap it again to turn the feature off or choose Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and cellular. It controls whether suspended apps fetch content in the background. It won't revive a stuck app, and turning it off is a data-saving choice, with the side effect that apps open staler.

How do you refresh an app on the iPhone? Pull down inside the app. If that does nothing, open the App Switcher, swipe up on the app, and reopen it from the Home Screen.

What does it mean to refresh an app? One of the three things at the top of this page. I'd ask which one the person means before following their steps.

Where do I find the refresh button? At the left end of a browser's address bar. Phone apps hide it behind the pull-down gesture.

Which button to press for refresh? F5 or Ctrl+R in Chrome on Windows. Command-R in Safari on a Mac. On a phone there's no key; pull down.

What does the refresh icon look like? An arrow curled into a circle.

How do you refresh an app on iPad? The same App Switcher gesture as an iPhone with Face ID, and Apple's app-not-responding page covers iPhone and iPad together.

When the App Is Mail

Mail on an iPhone has its own version of every rung here, and a few that no other app has, such as a fetch schedule and a push setting that decide how often it checks on its own. The refresh email on iPhone guide covers those, plus the remove-and-re-add-account step that stands in for clear data. The generic rungs on this page still apply to Mail, in the same order.

The Short Version

Pull down. Quit and reopen. Restart. Update the app, then the system. Those four erase nothing. On Android, clear the cache next and clear data only with your sign-ins written down. On iPhone, offload before you delete, and check subscriptions before either. A clean reinstall that still fails means the app, so stop there and write to the developer. And stop swiping apps away out of habit; Apple says it does nothing for battery and can leave the app with nothing new to show when you come back, which is the exact complaint that started this.