How To Make Google Chrome Use Less RAM

Google Chrome is undoubtedly the most efficient browser you can get today, but it’s still far from perfect. Part of the imperfection emanates from the infamous memory problems known to hog up PC resources by taking significant processing power. Such considerable memory usage can lead to freezing or crashing. To help you out, we’ve highlighted several solutions to cut down on Chrome’s memory usage. 

But, Why Does Chrome Use So Much Memory?

Web browsers, including Chrome, store extensions and tabs in a separate RAM process. This form of data isolation seeks to enhance security, stability, and performance, especially in modern CPUs. So, every time you open several tabs on your browser, Chrome splits everything into a separate process meaning that you are using a lot of RAM. You can improve this through the following steps. 

Close Background Apps

Chrome apps remain active even after you close the browser. The open apps continue using the memory without your knowledge hence the need to close them manually. But, while manually closing them will help, the best thing is to disable background apps to prevent that from happening again. 

1. Open “Chrome Settings”
2. Click “Advanced”
3. Select “System”
4. Toggle the button beside “Continue Running Background Apps When Google Chrome is Closed” to turn it off. 

Open Few Tabs

Maintaining a low number of open tabs will ease up RAM usage. So, if you have a dozen of tabs open at the same time, you should expect some issues with memory. Chrome itself tries to help by putting some of the open but inactive tabs to sleep. As a result, less RAM will be used with fewer active tabs, and the browser may respond more swiftly. If you must open many tabs, you can group them through Tab Groups. 

Delete Unused Extensions

Extensions are a critical part of browsing, especially in Google Chrome. So, if you use Chrome, you probably have a handful of them already installed on your PC. Like the tabs, extensions also have their share of the memory, and removing the unused ones would free up significant space. To delete the unused extensions,

1. Click the three-dot icon at the top
2. Open “More”
3. Click “Tools”
4. Identify the unnecessary extensions and “Remove.” 

Use the Task Manager

The Chrome browser also has its task manager, which you can use to check the processes eating up the memory. Therefore, you won’t need to close the browser altogether, but you can use the task manager to stop any processes eating up your RAM. To locate the Task Manager, 

1. Click the three-dot menu 
2. Select More Tools
3. Click Task Manager

Here, you simply need to identify the unnecessary running tasks and click “End Process.”

Restore Default Settings or Reinstall

You can start from scratch if you still think that Chrome is mysteriously using more memory than it should. Restoring the browser to default settings will take you back to when you first installed it. The browser will reset everything from the search engine, the new tab page, and pinned tabs. Besides, resetting to default settings deletes all temporary data and disables all extensions. However, passwords, history, and bookmarks will remain intact. 

1. Open “Chrome Settings”
2. Click “Advanced”
3. Select “Reset and Clean Up”
4. Choose “Restore Settings to Their Original Defaults.”

5. Click “Reset Settings”

If you decide to reinstall Chrome, you should back up your saved data which might be gone for good, especially if you don’t use Chrome Sync to Reset. 

Although Google Chrome is considered a RAM-hungry browser, there’s so much you can do to limit the usage. Try out the solutions discussed here to lower memory usage and enhance performance.