History and Cache

These settings fine-tune how Opera remembers Web pages you have visited.

History

You can specify the maximum number of addresses Opera should remember:

Back and forward addresses
- Local history, specific to a single window or page
- Access through drop-down triangles on "Back" and "Forward" buttons
- Setting to "0" will disable "Back" and "Forward" buttons
Typed in addresses
- Web addresses entered in Opera's address field
- Access through drop-down triangles on "Address field"
- Setting to "0" will disable "Address field" drop-down
Visited addresses
- Global hostory, all Web resources accessed
- Marks links as visited

Press to clear history lists.

Tip: You can view your global history in the "History" panel in Opera's Hotlist, or in a separate page.

Memory and disk cache

A cache is an archive of Web pages you have visited.

Memory cache

Opera uses your computer's memory to temporarily store recently visited Web pages. It is generally a good idea to let Opera handle memory caching automatically.

Tip: Try lowering memory cache values to browse faster on old computers.

Disk cache

Opera stores pages locally so that you can access them quickly when you revisit them. Increase the disk cache if you want to keep more local copies of Web pages, and keep them longer.

Tip: You can see the content of your current disk cache in a separate page.

By default, Opera will cache all content (documents, images, and other content) on Web pages, but you can set Opera to exclude for example images.

Tip: Select "Empty on exit" if you do not want to keep local copies of Web pages after you exit Opera.

Press to delete all cached content from your disk.

Server checking

When you revisit Web pages, Opera normally asks for new versions even though most Web content is not updated very often. Some Web sites also redirect you to a different page than the one you attempt to view.

Checking for changes less often, and disabling redirection checking, may speed up your browsing experience.

Note: If you rarely check for changes, you may sometimes have to reload a Web page to get the newest version. And try turning redirection checking back on if page loading suddenly halts on a particular site.

Learn more about history and cache