What is DNS? How to flush DNS on your computer? If you are curious about those, focus on this post from NewsPivot.

About DNS

Do you know what is DNS? Well, DNS, short for Domain Name System, is a hierarchical and distributed Internet system that maps human-readable domain names to machine-readable IP addresses. It’s designed for computers, services, and other resources connected to the Internet or other Internet Protocol networks.

DNS can speed up the load of the website you’ve visited, which makes you surf the Internet more fluently. Unfortunately, DNS can randomly cause security, network connectivity, and other problems. Faced with such issues, you may need to flush DNS to reset IP addresses, making everything back to normal.

Tips:
Before flushing DNS, you can try to restart the computer to see if it can help solve your problem.

Below, this post shows you how to flush DNS on Windows and Mac. Simply keep reading to find the needed information.

Recommended article: How to Fix if chrome://net-internals/#dns Not Working

How to Flush DNS on Windows

If you are a Windows user, you can refer to the following instructions to reset IP/flush DNS.

For Windows 11/10/8.1/8

Step 1: Right-click the Start icon and select Run.

Step 2: Type cmd in the Run dialog box. Then click OK at the same time when you press Ctrl + Shift.

Step 3: Click Yes if you see the User Account Control window. That may lead you to run Command Prompt as an administrator.

Step 4: In the elevated Command Prompt, type the following flush DNS commands and press Enter after each.

  • ipconfig /flushdns
  • ipconfig /registerdns
  • ipconfig /release
  • ipconfig /renew
  • netsh winsock reset

Step 5: After that, restart your computer.

For Windows 7

Step 1: Click the Start icon and then navigate to All Programs > Accessories.

Step 2: Find and right-click Command Prompt. Then select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Execute the following flush DNS commands one after another. Once done, reboot your system.

  • ipconfig /flushdns
  • ipconfig /registerdns
  • ipconfig /release
  • ipconfig /renew
  • netsh winsock reset

Also read: chrome://net-internals/#dns – Clear/Flush the DNS Cache on Chrome

For Windows XP/Vista

Step 1: Click the Start icon and then go to All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.

Step 2: In the Command Prompt window, type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter.

Step 3: After the DNS flush process is finished, you will receive a prompted message. If you see the “Action Requires Elevation” message instead, you need to contact the administrator of your computer for help.

How to Flush DNS on macOS

For Mac users, there is a step-by-step guide on how to flush DNS.

Step 1: Open Finder and go to Applications > Utilities. Then double-click Terminal to open it.

Tips:
Alternatively, you can open Spotlight by pressing Command + Space, search for Terminal, and then press Enter to open this utility.

Step 2: In the Terminal, run the right flush DNS command based on your system version.

  • OS X 10.11 – 11.0 (Catalina, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, and Big Sur): sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
  • OS X 10.10 (Yosemite): sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache
  • OS X 10.7 – 10.9 (Mavericks, Mountain Lion, and Lion): sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
  • OS X 10.6 and older: sudo dscacheutil –flushcache

Step 3: Press Enter. Then input your administrator password and press Enter again.

Bottom Line

This post discusses how to flush DNS on multiple devices in detail. Hope you can refer to the given guide to flush DNS and solve network problems successfully.

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About The Author

Yamila

Position: Columnist

Yamila is a fan of computer science. She can solve many common issues for computer users by writing articles with simple and clear words. The very aspect that she is good at is partition management including create partition, format partition, copy disk and so on. When she is free, she enjoys reading, doing some excerpts, listening to music and playing games.