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How to force images to update in SharePoint Online

This is a quick tip on how to update images in modern SharePoint sites that won’t update or refresh

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This is a quick tip for anyone who has noticed when they update images in modern SharePoint sites that they don’t seem to update.

I’ve recently been doing a lot more authoring/ page editing in modern SharePoint and a small quirk I have noticed is around images. Usually, if you update an image and overwrite the original a forced browser refresh (CTRL+F5) does the trick – the image will update to show the newest version.

The problem

I’ve been doing the exact same thing in a SharePoint communication site recently and noticed that the updated image would not display – no matter how many times I force refreshed the browser, no matter which browser I use (I flit between Chrome and Edge Chromium quite a lot). The image(s) were saved in the Site Assets Library, not weren’t checked out either so no reason why they would not display once overwritten.

The image (product, right) doesn’t update to reflect the changes made in SharePoint.

The solution

I’ve found a really simple way to get around this:

  • Right-click on the image > Open the image in a new tab
  • Force refresh (CTRL + F5) the image in a new tab
  • Navigate back to the SharePoint communication site > force refresh (CTRL + F5) again
  • The image will now be displayed as expected
Opening the image in a new tab or window then force refreshing will update the image on the SharePoint page.

If anyone else has come across this issue, or found any other ways to solve it – let me know in the comments!

8 responses to “How to force images to update in SharePoint Online”

  1. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    I tried your trick and was hoping it would solve, but the old images continues to remain. Are you still running into this or have learning anything new?

    Reply
    1. Anthony Avatar
      Anthony

      Hi, thanks for the comment! For me this still gets round the issue and I know others left comments to say it worked for them too. Have you tried browsing the images in incognito mode or in private browsing to see if they update?

      Reply
      1. Julie Avatar
        Julie

        I have. It seems like on the homepage it take about 24 hours for the image to be fully replaced.

  2. Hector Avatar
    Hector

    That works for the people who knows the trick
    but is there a way to make sharepoint do it by itself?

    I mean, it is not a practical solution because the audience of the site won’t know when someone made an update and they will not be doing that trick all the time.

    Reply
    1. Anthony Avatar
      Anthony

      Hi Hector, I would say it’s more of an issue for SharePoint Online than something we the consumers need to figure out a way around, this was purely to document how I forced images to refresh when observing they weren’t updating.

      Thanks,
      Anthony

      Reply
  3. How to build a knowledge base in SharePoint – SharePoint Stuff

    […] Browse: Three column section consisting of images, text and button web parts. I used the images from the look book template to get the correct sizing for the images above. When updating the images I noticed they didn’t update immediately which I wrote about how to fix here. […]

    Reply
  4. Osman Avatar
    Osman

    Thank you! I wasted hours on this issue.

    Reply
    1. Anthony Avatar
      Anthony

      Same! Glad to hear it’s helped someone else

      Reply

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