You minimize your CSS using a CSS minifier or compressor. This question has answers that will address that for you:

What are some good css and js minimizers for production code?

As for caching, the smaller the file the better, of course. You can also set your EXPIRES HEADERS that your server sends out. Yahoo has some information here:

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

Answer from DA. on Stack Overflow
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Toptal
toptal.com › developers › cssminifier
CSS Minifier & Compressor | Toptal®
CSS Minifier · ClearMinify · Copy to Clipboard · The API has changed, to see more please click here · To minify/compress your CSS, perform a POST request to · API https://www.toptal.com/developers/cssminifier/api/raw · with the input parameter ...
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You minimize your CSS using a CSS minifier or compressor. This question has answers that will address that for you:

What are some good css and js minimizers for production code?

As for caching, the smaller the file the better, of course. You can also set your EXPIRES HEADERS that your server sends out. Yahoo has some information here:

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

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1

Yes! It's called css compression/minification. In my opinion, this is the best compressor: https://csscompressor.net/ Paste in your CSS, and it will be compressed. Also, make sure you're using as few selectors as possible in your HTML, go through and see if you can combine them and remove proerties you don't need. Set defaults with this code, so you don't have to write then into each selector at the very top of your main css file. Once you've done that, then cache & Gzip your CSS by adding this to your .htaccess file in the root of your site.

#GZIP ----------------------------
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css

<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
  mod_gzip_on Yes
  mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
  mod_gzip_item_include filee \.(html?|txt|css|js|php)$
  mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
  mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
  mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
  mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
  mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>

<ifmodule mod_php4.c>
    php_value zlib.output_compression 16386
</ifmodule>

#CACHE ----------------------------

<ifModule mod_headers.c>
  <filesMatch "\\.(css)$">
    Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
  </filesMatch>
</ifModule>
<ifModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive On
  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 604800 seconds"
</ifModule>

That should cache and make your css as small as possible. It's what I use on my site and my load time after caching is just under 1 second on a good connection!

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Minifier
minifier.org
Minify JS and CSS online, or include the minifier in your project for on-the-fly compression.
All CSS/JS passed along, will be combined into 1 minified file. use MatthiasMullie\Minify; $minifier = new Minify\JS($path1, $path2); ... This is roughly equivalent to the constructor.
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HubSpot
blog.hubspot.com › home › website › how to minify css and speed up your website
How to Minify CSS and Speed Up Your Website
July 18, 2022 - And, as you may have already guessed, larger files equate to more time and resources required to process the files. Consequently, website visitors will get the impression that your website or application is slow — not exactly delivering the exceptional user experience they desire. And that's where CSS minification comes in — it removes extra code and results in a smaller CSS file that works identically to the original.
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Cloudflare
cloudflare.com › learning › performance › how-to-minify-css
Minify CSS | Reduce file sizes for faster loading | Cloudflare
Technically, CSS minification is different from CSS compression, even though the goal of both is the same: to reduce the size of the file. Minification alters the code by removing comments and characters.
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CleanCSS
cleancss.com › css-minify
CSS Minify
Minifying CSS takes the beautified, well formed CSS code that you have written and removes the spacing, indentation, newlines, and comments. These elements are not required for CSS to be used successfully.
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Elegant Themes
elegantthemes.com › blog › tips & tricks › how to minify your website’s css, html & javascript
How to Minify Your Website's CSS, HTML & Javascript
January 25, 2023 - Simply paste in your code and then click the Minify button to output the minified code. You can even download the output code as a file for convenience. csscompressor.net (CSS only) – This online CSS compressor is quick, easy, and free to use.
Find elsewhere
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KeyCDN
keycdn.com › support › how-to-minify-css-js-and-html
How to Minify CSS, JS, and HTML - KeyCDN Support
To minify CSS, JS, and HTML involves removing any unnecessary characters from within a file to help reduce its size and thus make it load faster.
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JetBrains
jetbrains.com › help › webstorm › compressing-css.html
Minifying CSS | WebStorm Documentation
If you're not using build tools, ... automatically, you need to install a minification tool and configure a File Watcher which will track changes to your files and run the minification tool....
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FreeFormatter
freeformatter.com › css-minifier.html
Free Online CSS Minifier / Compressor - FreeFormatter.com
CSS Minifier · Compresses a CSS string/file with no possible side-effect. Removes useless white spaces, indentation characters and line breaks · Strips all comments · Removes the last semi-colon of a style declaration and extra semi-colons · Removes empty CSS declarations · Removes units when using zero values · Removes the leading 0 if a float value is lower than one · Chances RGB color values to a shorter hexadecimal format ·
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Static.app
static.app › css-minifier
CSS Minifier - Static.app
Paste or Upload Your CSS Code: Enter CSS code directly into the minifier's text area or upload your CSS file. ... Click 'Minify': The tool automatically compresses your CSS code by removing unnecessary characters and spaces.
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WP Rocket
wp-rocket.me › home › core web vitals › largest contentful paint › how to minify css and javascript in wordpress
How to Minify CSS and JavaScript in WordPress
April 23, 2025 - When developers write code, they will include line breaks, white space, and comments which make the code easier to read but are not needed by your browser to process the code. Adame Dahmani, Product Manager at WP Media, explains: Minification is one of the lowest-effort and safest optimizations you can use on any website. It removes what the browser doesn’t use, resulting in the same functionality with a smaller file size. The main benefits of minification are reduced bandwidth usage, page size, and loading times. Which resources can you minify? Both JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) are resources that can go through minification.
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LogRocket
blog.logrocket.com › home › the complete best practices for minifying css
The complete best practices for minifying CSS - LogRocket Blog
June 4, 2024 - Thus, there has been a lot of focus on reducing JavaScript payload sizes, including how to split them into reasonable chunks and minify them. We have now begun to pay attention to issues emanating from poorly optimized CSS.
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Feed The Bot
feedthebot.org › home › how to minify css? – the best practices minifying css
How to Minify CSS? – The Best Practices Minifying CSS
April 8, 2025 - Minifying CSS, as the name suggests, involves reducing the size of your CSS directives. To achieve genuine CSS minimization, it’s essential to ascertain whether you’re effectively utilizing all your CSS. If not, adjustments are warranted. In this article delves into the significance of CSS minification, exploring its benefits, challenges, and the path towards implementing it […]
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Hostinger
hostinger.com › home › tutorials › how to minify css
How to minify CSS for faster website performance
August 23, 2016 - Developers use whitespace, line breaks, and comments to make CSS code readable. Browsers don’t need these characters to apply styles correctly, so they add size without adding value. ... Whitespace. Extra spaces between selectors, properties, and values. Line breaks. Breaks that separate rules and declarations. Comments. Notes that explain sections of code, wrapped in /* */. Formatting characters. Semicolons and spacing that don’t affect how styles work. Minification removes all of these elements.
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NitroPack
nitropack.io › home › page speed › how to minify css, javascript, and html easily
How to Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML Easily
August 19, 2025 - Minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML involves removing unnecessary spaces, line breaks, and comments, and shortening variable or function names. Consider using automated tools or build processes for a more streamlined and error-resistant approach, ...
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freeCodeCamp
freecodecamp.org › news › minify-css-css-minifying-and-compression-explained
Minify CSS – CSS Minifying and Compression Explained
May 18, 2022 - Code comments can help developers work together, remember why decisions are made, and understand the purpose of different parts of code. But the browser does not need that information. Spaces and indentation improve the readability of code by humans, but the browser can read code without spaces. The element selector, curly braces, and semi-colon are essential parts of the code as they follow the CSS syntax and help the browser interpret the code correctly. CSS minification methods take these parts that the browser does not need from the code, which result in a lower-sized file, and makes it faster for the browser to download such files from the server.
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GreenGeeks
greengeeks.com › home › how to minify css in wordpress
How to Minify CSS in WordPress - GreenGeeks
August 3, 2022 - On the left-hand admin panel click on Settings and select the WP Super Minify option. This will pull up the main settings page. You will actually not see many options on this plugin.