emptying the cache

I have a mid 2011 iMac. Every couple of browsing sessions I used to remove "all website data" under preferences and also empty the cache. A couple of months ago I upgraded to OSX 10.7.5 and Safari 6.0.2. I now longer can find the option to empty the cache. I actually never really understood what emptying the cache did anyway?
Also, what name does OSX 10.7.5 go by? Is it mountain lion?
Thanks
Dan

Welcome to Mac-Forums..

As you browse the web, the browser is required to bring down a lot of data (images usually) to show you the full content of the page. However, a lot about the website (like the images, logo) usually don't change between your visits. So downloading them over and over again is a waste of bandwidth. To that end, browsers keep local copies or caches of a lot of this data and use it to show the images immediately while only getting new dynamic (usually text) each time.

Clearing the cache essentially forces the browser to rebuild it and re-download everything over again. Unless you're experiencing some slowdowns in your browser, clearing the cache isn't really necessary..

OS X 10.7 is Lion, OS X 10.8 is Mountain Lion..

And reset Cache appears under Safari in the drop down menu in the Menu Bar if you must use it.

+1 at the reply from harryb2448. To be 100% sure or if paranoid, open Applications>Utilities>Terminal and copy and paste:
rm -R ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db
Please be careful in Terminal, you can really mess things up there if you are not careful.

In fact keep out of Terminal unless you know precisely what you are doing. Very powerful magic Terminal.

Thanks for the replies. harryb2448, there is no reset cache option under Safari on my machine. No matter, you have all convinced me to leave it alone. I don't have a clue what Terminal is, so will stay far away.
Thanks
Dan

If you are using version 6.0.4, the latest, then it appears under the drop down window under Safari in the Menu bar.

harryb2448 said:

If you are using version 6.0.4, the latest, then it appears under the drop down window under Safari in the Menu bar.

Click to expand...

As harry said its the fourth line under Private Browsing.

And its not called Reset Cache FWIW its called Reset Safari