# Photos don't update when referenced by URLs
**URL:** https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726
**Category:** Ask for Help
**Created:** [June 30, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726 "2022-06-30T17:57:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@LowCountry](https://community.glideapps.com/u/LowCountry)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/1 "2022-06-30T17:57:07Z")
I have an app that displays a catalog of items using the Cards style of controls. The image is associated with a column in a Glide data table that references a URL. I have updated the photo on the referenced URL but the Glide app continues to display the original image that was referenced. I have cleared the browser cache multiple times, I’ve unlinked and relinked the data set, I’ve changed the URL reference for the photo and then changed it back to what it should be, I have tried any number of things I can think of to force Glide to refresh the photo that is being referenced by the URL to no avail. How can you force Glide to refresh the data set? It’s as if Glide has downloaded the original photo that was referenced by the URL and there is nothing you can do to get it to refresh the content without deleting your entire app and starting over from scratch. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Greg
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/2 "2022-06-30T18:17:31Z")
Images are heavily cached.
There are a couple of ways around this. One is to add a query parameter to your image url using a template column. The query parameter could be anything as long as it’s value changes whenever you need to image to update. So some kind of user interaction could change a column value, which would change the query parameter in the template column. The other option is to still use a query parameter, but the value would be a date or a date/time combination. You’ll have to be careful though, because any time the date time value changes, it will cause the image to reload.
So, I guess my main question would be how often do you expect the image to change? Is it at regular intervals, or is it just occasionally and manually?
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### Author:  [@LowCountry](https://community.glideapps.com/u/LowCountry)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/3 "2022-06-30T18:52:39Z")
The images are stored in a CDN and they are updated manually but only if there was a mistake in the original upload. Of the 1200 images in our last catalog, there were 8 images that had to be updated on the CDN. I’m still trying to process your solution as a workaround, but it would seem Glide would provide the ability to force some type of refresh of cached images.
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Hager](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Jeff_Hager)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2022, 7:24pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/4 "2022-06-30T19:24:52Z")
It would be variation of something like below. I guess I can’t say for sure if glide is doing the caching or your browser. I would lean partially to both. The browser on the end user’s device is downloading and rendering the images. However, glide does format images for efficiency.
> [@How can I cause my images to update whenever they change?](https://community.glideapps.com/t/how-can-i-cause-my-images-to-update-whenever-they-change/364/2):
>
> Images are cached aggressively. You can work around this by causing your URL to update when data changes: [image] Here I’ve made a URL that changes every time the value in F2 changes. I’ve added a fake URL parameter, cachebust (the name does not matter), at the end of the URL. This is totally ignored, but it makes the URL look brand new when the data changes.
> [@Potential security issue: ability to clear users cache needed](https://community.glideapps.com/t/potential-security-issue-ability-to-clear-users-cache-needed/13575/8):
>
> Glide will cache images to make app loading more efficient. You may want to add a query parameter such as ?cachebust=12345 to the end of the url, so it’s recognized as a new url, but will still load the same image.
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### Author:  [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2022, 12:51am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/5 "2022-07-01T00:51:17Z")
> [@Jeff\_Hager](#):
>
> The other option is to still use a query parameter, but the value would be a date or a date/time combination. You’ll have to be careful though, because any time the date time value changes, it will cause the image to reload.
This is the usual way I do, but yeah, it gets a bit slow when you’re updating every 10 secs. I usually have a math column to make it update every hour or every X minutes, 10 secs is a reach.
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### Author:  [@KayleighOliver](https://community.glideapps.com/u/KayleighOliver)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2026, 6:29am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/6 "2026-04-07T06:29:41Z")
I’ve got a similar problem with an app except my images are coming from an Airtable within my Glide backend. Then I’m using the image field in that table to pull the image to the editor into a collection that only gets one row of data and that data’s individual image. The collection will change depending on a checkbox option that is selected. This should change weekly, and it could be anything from a list of 100+ different rows.
This was working fine in the editor but then we noticed that the images weren’t changing in the front-end. After clearing my cache, and reinstalling the app, I figured it was a caching issue but I don’t want users to have to do the and thing everytime.
So I just wanted to check that this is the same caching issue as described above and whether updating the URL with the date and time would work in this instance?
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### Author:  [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2026, 7:52am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/7 "2026-04-07T07:52:33Z")
It should work, I have done that before.
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### Author:  [@KayleighOliver](https://community.glideapps.com/u/KayleighOliver)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2026, 9:50pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/8 "2026-04-07T21:50:16Z")
Great! Seems to have worked. Is this a best practice that you do when working with images from external sources?
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### Author:  [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2026, 11:48pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/photos-dont-update-when-referenced-by-urls/43726/9 "2026-04-08T23:48:58Z")
Yes, that should be the best practice for your case.