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How to Use Breeze Basic Options for WordPress Caching

Learn How to Use Breeze Basic Options to enable caching, lazy load images and videos, & boost your WordPress site speed easily.

Written by Syed Abuzar Mehdi
Updated over 2 months ago

Breeze is a powerful caching plugin designed by Cloudways to improve the performance of your WordPress site.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the Basic Options Tab of the Breeze plugin.

You’ll learn how to enable caching, optimize images and videos using lazy loading, and manage other important features, all without needing any technical background.

Note: This guide is perfect for beginners looking to speed up their WordPress websites using Breeze.

Table of Contents:

How to Use the Basic Options Tab?

The Basic Options tab in the Breeze plugin lets you quickly enable caching and lazy loading to improve your website's speed and performance.

Here’s a quick video tutorial that walks you through how to use Breeze Basic Options to enable caching and improve your WordPress site speed:

In this article, we’ll help you configure Breeze easily, even if you're not a tech expert.

How to Access Breeze Settings?

  • Log into your WordPress Admin Panel or click on the top bar menu.

  • Go to Settings > Breeze from the left-hand menu.

  • You’ll now see different tabs — click on Basic Options to get started.

Enable Cache System

Caching helps your site load faster by storing frequently accessed content. Here's how to turn it on:

  • In the Basic Options tab, check the box next to Cache System.

  • Click Save Changes.

How to Confirm It’s Working:

  • Visit your website.

  • Right-click anywhere on the page and choose View Page Source.

  • Look for a line in the code like:

If you see it, caching is working!

Enable Lazy Load for Images

Lazy loading speeds up your site by loading images only when visitors scroll to them.

  • In the Basic Options tab, check the box for Lazy Load Images.

  • Save changes.

What Happens Behind the Scenes:

  • Breeze replaces each image with a lightweight placeholder.

  • When a user scrolls down, the original image loads only when it becomes visible.

  • Breeze uses smart coding to load the right image size for different screen types (desktop, mobile, etc.).

How to Confirm?

  • View your page source and search for terms like data-breeze, data-brsrcset, or data-brsizes.

  • The following attributes replace the original attributes:

    • data-breeze = src

    • data-brsrcset = data-srcset

    • data-brsizes = data- sizes

View the Page Source to confirm lazy loading:

  • Simple images will show attributes like data-breeze="src", replacing the original src attribute.

  • Images with multiple sizes, using attributes like data-brsrcset and data-brsizes, will also be adjusted based on the screen’s resolution.

  • As the page is scrolled, the videos load. You can follow the network tab.

Important: There is no need for preview images as the videos load by lazy load right before they come into the viewport.

Enable Lazy Load for Videos and Iframes

Videos can take up a lot of bandwidth. Breeze helps load them only when needed — just before the user sees them.

  • Check the Lazy Load for iframes and Videos box.

  • Save changes.

Supported Video Platforms:

Lazy load will apply only to iframes from the following video hosts:

  • YouTube

  • Vimeo

  • DailyMotion

  • Facebook

  • Amazon S3

  • Wistia

  • BrightCove

  • Cincopa

  • Twitch

  • BitChute

  • MySpace

  • TikTok

Important: Breeze avoids lazy loading of all iframes by default to prevent breaking non-video embeds.

These can be found in /breeze/inc/class-breeze-lazy-load.php.

Users can add/remove any of the allowed URLs by using a filter:

$allowed_iframes_url = apply_filters( 'breeze_iframe_lazy_load_list', array(
					'youtube.com',
					'dailymotion.com/embed/video',
					'facebook.com/plugins/video.php',
					'player.vimeo.com',
					'fast.wistia.net/embed/',
					'players.brightcove.net',
					's3.amazonaws.com',
					'cincopa.com/media',
					'twitch.tv',
					'bitchute.com',
					'media.myspace.com/play/video',
					'tiktok.com/embed',
				) );

Lazy load for videos:

<video>
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Video source code would not be triggered. Only videos with the src attribute are the use case we cover as follows:

< video src=”video.webm” type=”video/webm” controls >
< /video >

Cross-origin Safe Links

For security reasons, links that open in a new tab (target="_blank") should include rel="noopener noreferrer".

How Breeze Helps?

Breeze automatically scans for external links that don’t have these values and updates them safely.

For Instance:

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank">Visit Site</a>

Breeze will change it to:

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit Site</a>

Note: If you’re using the WordPress Editor, this is usually handled for you. But Breeze ensures that any custom links are also secured properly.

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank">external link {must have rel noopener noreferrer}</a><br/>
<a href="https://www.example2.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> No Opener {no change needed here , already has noopener}</a><br/>
<a href="#stuff" target="_blank">link is actually a #ID {this should be ignored}</a><br/>
<a href="#" target="_blank">link is actually a # {this should be ignored}</a><br/>
<a href="https://www.example3.com" target="_blank" rel="has-a-rel-value-already" >external link other rel {should have the current rel with "noopener noreferrer" extra values}</a><br/>

Enable Cache for Logged-in Users

If your site allows user logins (e.g., membership sites), you can cache pages for logged-in users too.

  • In the Basic Options tab, check the box for Enable cache for logged-in users.

  • Click Save Changes.

To Confirm:

  • Log in as a user.

  • View the page source and look for the Breeze cache comment as mentioned earlier.

What Happens When You Click “Clear Cache” on a Post:

When you click “Clear Cache” on a specific post, the system refreshes cached content at multiple levels:

  • Varnish Cache (server-level cache): Fully purged to ensure the server delivers fresh content

  • Cloudflare Cache (CDN/global cache): Fully purged so visitors receive the updated version

  • Breeze Cache (WordPress/plugin cache): Cleared only for the selected post

This means your updated post appears correctly to visitors without unnecessarily clearing Breeze’s entire cache.

Don’t Forget to Save and Purge

After making any changes:

  • Click Save Changes in Breeze.

  • By clicking ‘Save Changes’ button, you will also trigger a purge request.

Important:
​​You don't need the Breeze plugin to enable Varnish caching, but using Breeze is highly recommended. Without Breeze (or a similar plugin), Varnish cannot detect content updates on your WordPress site—so it may serve outdated content until its cache expires (default TTL is 4 hours) or is manually purged.

Breeze enhances cache management by automatically purging only the relevant URLs when changes occur, such as when posts/pages are created, updated, or deleted, themes or plugins are modified, or a manual purge is triggered from the Breeze dashboard. This helps maintain content freshness and avoids unnecessary full-cache clears.

That’s it! We hope this article was helpful.

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