Google Chrome is a great web browser, but it is well known for being resource hungry. This has long been an issue, but the latest versions of the Chrome browser offer a reprieve that not only frees up resources in Chrome, but also makes the browser feel faster too when it’s under heavy usage and load. You’ll even find that it uses less memory, and less CPU as well.
Be sure you update the Chrome app before attempting this trick, earlier versions do not support the feature discussed here. We are covering this on Chrome for Mac, but the memory saver trick works for Windows PC as well.
Be sure you are on Chrome version 108.0.5359.124 or newer, if you haven’t updated Chrome in a while you will need to do that first to have access to this feature.chrome://flags/#high-efficiency-mode-availablechrome://settings/performance
You should quickly see a difference in Chrome resource usage, with both lower memory usage and lower CPU usage.
Here’s a typical heavy Chrome usage session where Chrome uses a ton of system resources, with the default setting and full memory usage, as seen in Activity Monitor:
And here’s the exact same set of windows and tabs open in Chrome, with Memory Saver enabled:
As you can see, memory usage is reduced by about 50%.
Admittedly, I’m a heavy web browser user, so a common web browsing session for me contains 10-20 browser windows, each with 3-15 tabs, which strains any web browser for memory usage, whether it’s Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, or Safari. Memory Saver makes a big difference with Chrome, and it’s well worth enabling if you’re a Chrome user as well.
Chrome describes the Memory Saver feature as follows:
“When on, Chrome frees up memory from inactive tabs. This gives active tabs and other apps more computer resources and keeps Chrome fast. Your inactive tabs automatically become active again when you go back to them.”
Do you use Memory Saver in Chrome? What do you think? Has it made a difference in how much resources Chrome consumes on your machine? Let us know your experiences in the comments?
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Thanks for the tip!
This is a great tool.
Is there a similar memory saver for Safari and Firefox?
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