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2 min fix 3 min read Recently reviewedBeginner

By , IT support technician

Quick Answer

In Chrome, go to Settings > Performance and turn on Memory Saver. In Edge, go to Settings > System and performance and turn on Sleeping tabs.

How to Stop Chrome or Edge from Using Too Much Memory (RAM) ​

Estimated Time to Fix: 2 minutes

Applies to: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-20

Summary ​

Modern web browsers are notoriously memory-hungry. If you keep many tabs open simultaneously, your browser can consume all of your computer's available memory (RAM), causing everything else to slow to a crawl. This guide explains how to enable built-in features that automatically put inactive tabs to sleep, saving significant memory.

Prerequisites ​

  • None required.

Instructions ​

1. Enable Memory Saver (Google Chrome) ​

  1. Open Google Chrome.
  2. Click the three vertical dots (⋮) in the top right corner and select Settings.
  3. In the left sidebar, click Performance.
  4. Find the Memory Saver option and toggle the switch to On.
  5. How it works: Chrome will now automatically free up memory from tabs you haven't looked at in a while. When you click back to an inactive tab, it will instantly reload.

2. Enable Sleeping Tabs (Microsoft Edge) ​

Microsoft Edge has a similar feature that is highly customizable.

  1. Open Microsoft Edge.
  2. Click the three horizontal dots (...) in the top right corner and select Settings.
  3. In the left sidebar, click System and performance.
  4. Scroll down to the "Optimize Performance" section.
  5. Toggle Save resources with sleeping tabs to On.
  6. Optional: Use the dropdown menu next to "Put inactive tabs to sleep after the specified amount of time" to choose how quickly tabs should go to sleep (e.g., 15 minutes of inactivity).

3. Identify and Close Heavy Extensions ​

Sometimes it's not the tabs themselves, but an extension that is using too much memory.

  1. In either Chrome or Edge, press Shift + Esc to open the browser's built-in Task Manager.
  2. Click the Memory footprint column header to sort by the amount of memory being used.
  3. Look for any item labeled "Extension:" that is using an unusually high amount of memory (e.g., over 500MB).
  4. If you don't recognize or need the extension, remove it by going to Settings > Extensions.

Troubleshooting ​

TIP

If you have a specific website (like your webmail or a dashboard) that you never want to go to sleep because you need real-time notifications, you can add it to the "Always keep these sites active" list in the Performance settings.

Symptom / ErrorPotential CauseSolution
"Memory Saver" option is missing in ChromeOutdated browserYour browser needs an update. Go to Settings > About Chrome to force an update, then restart the browser.
Tabs constantly reload when I switch to themFeature working as intendedThis is how Memory Saver works. If it bothers you, you can turn it off, but your computer will use more memory.