Caching
Dotjuice → Page speed → Caching
What this tab controls
Full-page HTML caching: whether pages are cached at all, whether mobile and desktop get separate cached copies, whether logged-in visitors are included, and how long a cached page stays valid before it's rebuilt.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Page Caching | On | Turns full-page caching on or off entirely. With this off, every other setting on this tab has no effect. |
| Separate Cache for Mobile Devices | On | Stores a distinct cached copy for mobile visitors, detected by user agent. Keeps this on if your theme shows different content or layout on mobile — otherwise mobile visitors could occasionally be served a desktop-cached page or vice versa. |
| Cache Pages for Logged-in Users | Off | See the warning below — this doesn't do what the label suggests. |
| Cache Lifetime (seconds) | 86400 (24 hours) | How long a cached page is considered fresh before it's automatically rebuilt. Minimum 300 seconds (5 minutes), maximum 30 days. |
How caching stays up to date
You never need to manually clear the cache after normal editing. It happens automatically when you:
- Publish or update any post or page (only that page and your homepage are cleared — the rest of your cached site is untouched)
- Switch themes
- Update a plugin or WordPress core
The Cache Lifetime setting is a safety net on top of this — a maximum age for any cached page, in case something changes the page without triggering a normal WordPress save (a scheduled event, an external data feed, etc.).
⚠ About "Cache Pages for Logged-in Users"
This setting is easy to misread. WordPress admin/editor sessions are excluded from the fastest cache delivery paths regardless of this setting — that part is fixed and can't be turned off, which is exactly what you want (you should always see a live, uncached view of your own site while logged in).
What this toggle actually does is let a logged-in visit contribute to building the cache that anonymous visitors later see, on the rare occasions a logged-in request reaches a page that isn't already cached. We recommend leaving this off unless you have a specific reason to change it: if you're logged in as an editor or admin and your theme shows you anything personalised (an admin bar styling quirk, a "welcome back" message, draft content preview, etc.), enabling this risks that content being saved into the cache and shown to anonymous visitors afterward.
Manually clearing the cache
Two ways to force every cached page to rebuild immediately:
- Clear Cache button in the Page speed settings toolbar
- Clear Cache button in your WordPress admin bar (visible on every page, front-end and admin) — this one also shows your current cache size and clears the combined CSS/JS files from the CSS and JavaScript tabs at the same time
Use this after making a change that automatic clearing wouldn't catch — a manual template edit, a change made outside the normal post/page editor, or simply to confirm you're looking at a fresh copy of a page while troubleshooting.
For the fastest possible caching
See Getting Started for the one-time WP_CACHE setup step — it enables the fastest of three delivery methods this plugin uses. Caching still works without it, just not at its absolute fastest.