How to limit Google Chrome memory usage and free up RAM

 

Reduce memory usage for Chrome: Google Chrome is the best and most powerful browser, so there’s no need to debate! Chrome is used by millions of users every day for browsing. As you probably already know, Google Chrome is based on Chromium. Likewise, Microsoft is using the Chromium engine for Windows Edge. One of the biggest complaints about Google Chrome is that it uses a lot of RAM despite being powerful and reliable. Just by running in the background, it consumes a lot of RAM! 

Are you a Google Chrome user experiencing the same issue? Do not worry; we will guide you on how to free up RAM and limit Google Chrome’s usage of memory in this post. Are you wondering why Chrome uses so much RAM? What could it be?

I will try to keep this as simple as possible, but this is the technical part. Imagine that you are using your smartphone. The RAM of your phone will determine how many apps you can run in the background. Spotify can be minimized and used to play music. Emails can be viewed, and web pages can be browsed. As soon as a lot of apps are running in the background, you may experience a bit of lag. 

Android will remove background processes and apps when the RAM starts to fill up, but you can manually close apps by swiping from the recent panel. Chrome now splits every tab and extension into its own process, just like that when you open it and browse through different tabs and extensions. In this way, if one thing crashes, it won’t affect the whole webpage or tab at once. 

You should be aware that a lot of stuff is happening behind the scenes. First of all, Chrome’s pre-rendering feature can cause higher memory usage, but on the plus side, it allows web pages to load faster. Please note that installing more tabs and extensions will result in more memory usage. You should, therefore, only install extensions that you use on a regular basis. Let’s proceed to the next step of freeing up RAM by limiting Google Chrome memory usage, shall we?

As mentioned earlier, Chrome usually uses all of the RAM for a required process to help you. Before performing any of the following steps, you should save your data and close Chrome. 

As I mentioned earlier, Google Chrome uses more RAM when you open more tabs. Therefore, if you notice that Chrome is using a lot of RAM, simply open it and close all the unnecessary tabs that are open. When certain web pages are closed, a lot of RAM is released. Here’s how:

  1. Check if any unwanted tabs are open in Google Chrome.
  2. Select the “x” or close button on the right side of the tab by navigating to it with your cursor.
  3. Now you can see a lot of RAM has been recovered.
  1. Click on the Menu button in Google Chrome. If you don’t know, the Menu button is the three dots at the top right corner of your screen. 
  2. Go to Settings by clicking on it. 
  3. You can find an Advanced Settings button at the bottom of the settings page once the page opens. 
  4. When the Advanced Settings window opens, find the toggle of Use hardware acceleration when available under the System settings and toggle it on. 
  5. Close and reopen Google Chrome.
  6. Navigate to the address bar of Google Chrome and type chrome://gpu/ (or copy and paste), then hit enter. 
  7. The hardware acceleration or GPU Rendering is now displayed.

The more tabs and extensions you have installed, the more memory you will use. As a result, you should uninstall or disable any extensions you haven’t used in a long time. There may be conflicts between extensions and toolbars on your browser, which can cause your RAM to be burdened. To remove or disable unwanted browser extensions: 

  1.  Click the Menu button in Google Chrome. In case you’re not aware, the Menu button is found in the top right corner of your screen. 
  2. When you place your cursor on the More tools option, you will see the Extensions option. 
  3. There is a page where you can find all the extensions you have installed if you click on Extensions.
  4. To remove all the unwanted extensions, simply click the remove button. 
  1. Open Google Chrome
  2. Enter chrome://flags into the address bar (or you can copy-paste), and then hit enter.
  3. Use the search box in the top portion of the page to search for Strict site isolation.
  4. Upon finding the option, toggle the entry to Enabled. Next, close and reopen Google Chrome.
  5. That’s all there is to it. Site Isolation will be enabled on Google Chrome.
  6. Turn on Use a Prediction service to load pages more quickly option Tabs to limit Google Chrome memory usage.
  7. Click on the Menu button in Google Chrome. Menu buttons appear in the top right corner of your screen as three dots. 
  8. Click on Settings and open it. Scroll down to the bottom of the settings page to see the Use a Prediction service button to load pages more quickly.
  9. Turn it on or enable it.
  10. Reset or Reinstall Google Chrome

If none of the above steps work for you, you can uninstall and reinstall Google Chrome to limit Google Chrome memory usage. Alternatively, you can use the Reset feature in Google Chrome to reset the search engine, homepage, etc. 

Conclusion

Here’s how to limit Google Chrome memory usage and free up RAM. Consider sharing this guide with your friends and colleagues for those who may find it useful if this post helped you to limit Google Chrome memory usage. SV Tech World offers some high-quality how-tos, news, reviews, and best buy guides, so bookmark our site or keep checking in. That being said, it’s time to bid you farewell; stay tuned for more tech guides!