How to Clear DNS Cache in Mac OSX Leopard

flush dns

DNS request are usually cache, that’s good as it speeds up the lookups within the same host but sometimes we will want to clear the cache so it don’t hold the values that are no longer valid. To do that in Mac (OS Tiger and below) we used the following command:

lookupd -flushcache

However a Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard user will tell you this command did not work on their terminal. In Leopard a new command has been used to replace flushcache, so to clear DNS cache in Leopard, just type this in your Terminal and hit enter.

dscacheutil -flushcache

Comments

Eris January 25th, 2008

Thanks, my college uses a capture page for logging into the wireless network and the first page opened redirects there so I was ending up with google.com cached as 1.1.1.1.
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Brett February 14th, 2008

I don’t know why, but I end up having to google this page every week or so. Never had this issue with Tiger, but thanks to this page being #1 in Google it’s pretty easy to fix ;)
Thx.
Reply
biscket July 17th, 2008

its very helpfull to me
Reply
bitcher August 13th, 2008

Useful especially if you use P2P clear the cache and watch your dl rate soar!!

thanks
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Carlos @ webbynode October 27th, 2008

We just got new macs for everyone in here, and I was still using the old one ;)

Thanks.
Reply
psps November 5th, 2008

it doesnt fix the google problem for me :(
Reply
Antonie Potgieter April 1st, 2009

Thank you. It helped me when my ISP went down and I couldn’t open certain websites.
Reply
Brad April 17th, 2009

Whoohoo, finally found this. Thanks for the post! I just got my mac and couldn’t figure this out for the life of me.
Reply
Tony Moore December 12th, 2009

PUT THIS info dscacheutil -flushcache WHERE????????????
Specifics Please
Reply
Adam January 9th, 2010

@Tony Moore
Open up the application called “Terminal”
then (without the quotes) type “dscacheutil -flushcache”
press enter

that should clear your DNS cache
Reply