Overview Open Chrome DevTools What's New in DevTools DevTools tips Simulate mobile devices with Device Mode Performance insights: Get actionable insights on your website's performance Lighthouse: Optimize website speed Animations: Inspect and modify CSS animation effects Changes: Track your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript changes Coverage: Find unused JavaScript and CSS CSS Overview: Identify potential CSS improvements Issues: Find and fix problems Media: View and debug media players information Memory Inspector: Inspect ArrayBuffer, TypedArray, DataView, and Wasm Memory. Network conditions: Override the user agent string Security: Understand security issues Search: Find text across all loaded resources Sensors: Emulate device sensors WebAuthn: Emulate authenticators Customize DevTools Engineering blog
Overview Open Chrome DevTools What's New in DevTools DevTools tips Simulate mobile devices with Device Mode Performance insights: Get actionable insights on your website's performance Lighthouse: Optimize website speed Animations: Inspect and modify CSS animation effects Changes: Track your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript changes Coverage: Find unused JavaScript and CSS CSS Overview: Identify potential CSS improvements Issues: Find and fix problems Media: View and debug media players information Memory Inspector: Inspect ArrayBuffer, TypedArray, DataView, and Wasm Memory. Network conditions: Override the user agent string Security: Understand security issues Search: Find text across all loaded resources Sensors: Emulate device sensors WebAuthn: Emulate authenticators Customize DevTools Engineering blog

Test back/forward cache

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This guide shows you how to use Chrome DevTools to do the following:

  • Test if you optimized your page for instant loads when using the browser's back and forward buttons.
  • Identify issues that may prevent your page from being eligible for this type of caching.

Back/forward cache (or bfcache) is a browser optimization that enables instant back and forward navigation. For more information, see Back/forward cache.

Important

Back/forward cache differs from browser cache and HTTP cache.

To inspect cache data, follow the steps in View cache data.

To inspect HTTP cache data, open the Size column of the Network Log. See Log network activity.

Test back/forward cache

To test back/forward cache, follow these steps:

  1. On your page, open DevTools, then navigate to Application > Background services > Back/forward cache.

    Back/forward cache tab.
  2. Click Test back/forward cache.

    Chrome automatically takes you to chrome://terms/ and back to your page.

    Alternatively, you can click the browser's back and forward buttons.

If the back/forward cache works for your page with no issues, you'll see the following message:

Successfully served from back/forward cache.

Otherwise, you'll see a list of issues.

To find out which issues affect which frames, expand the Frames Expand icon. section.

Expanded Frames section.

Resolve issues that prevent caching

If your page isn't eligible for back/forward caching, the Back/forward cache tab shows you a list with three types of causes:

Not eligible for back/forward cache.
  • Actionable. You can fix these issues to enable caching. For example, stop using unload events.
  • Pending Support. Chrome doesn't support these features yet, so they prevent caching. However, once supported, Chrome removes these limitations.
  • Not Actionable. You can't fix these issues on this page. Something that is outside the page's control prevents caching.

To find out which frame is the blocker, expand the corresponding section under the issue's description.

Blocking frames.

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