Temporary Internet Files

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Temporary Internet Files Mean?

Temporary Internet Files is a folder used by Microsoft Windows for storing browser caches. The directory is widely used by all installed Web browsers, especially Internet Explorer, for saving the contents of Web pages or websites visited by the user. It helps in speeding up the loading of pages from frequently visited sites and is also used for offline browsing.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Temporary Internet Files

When a user views a Web page, the browser stores the contents of the page in the Temporary Internet Files folder. Eventually, the size of this folder becomes very large. Users therefore can recover precious disk space by deleting some contents. This task can be scheduled or done manually using the browser. It is also highly recommended to clean up the folder since malware applications such as viruses and Trojans are known to infect some files in that folder.

The Temporary Internet Files folder is also used by browsers for storing pages for offline use. This allows users to view a website or Web page even when not connected to the Internet.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.