How-To Fully Disable Caching in Drupal 7

Caching helps to cut the load on server & increase server speed. Hence, Drupal comes with caching build-in at various levels. there will be situations where,  you may want to disable *ALL* caching like I was doing some module development and without clearing out the caches the changes were not visible. So, I had to disable caches.  Incase, you too want to disable Caching for say for development – here below

1. Go to Site Configuration -> Performance:
   • Set the following options, and click Save configuration:
     • Caching mode: Disabled
     • Minimum cache lifetime: none
     • Page compression: Disabled
     • Block cache: Disabled
     • Optimize CSS files: Disabled
     • Optimize JavaScript files: Disabled
   • Click Clear cached data.
2. Go to Site building -> Views -> Tools:
   • Check Disable views data caching and click Save configuration.
   • Click Clear Views’ cache.
3. Install the Devel module, and go to Site Configuration -> Devel settings:
   • Check Rebuild the theme registry on every page load and click Save configuration.
4. Add the following to your .module file to disable menu caching

function hook_init(){
   //FIXME: remove before going into production
   menu_rebuild();
}

With this, now ALL caching in drupal will disabled. Enjoy quicker development & don’t forget to undo these changes once your site goes into production!

Related posts:

1. Getting Started with Drupal Module Development
2. Enable right-click on pages where its been disabled