Chrome barely has tabs open and still eats all my RAM
Chrome gives each tab its own process; security feature, memory cost. It also has a Memory Saver that actually helps if you turn it on.
Try this first
- 1Chrome > three dots > Settings > Performance. Turn on 'Memory Saver'. Inactive tabs are unloaded and reload fast on click.
- 2Use the built-in task manager: Shift+Esc in Chrome. See per tab/extension what memory hogs are. Close the offenders.
- 3Extensions are notorious: each runs in every tab. Remove what you do not use weekly.
- 4On an 8 GB laptop in 2026, Chrome plus Teams plus Excel is just too much. Memory upgrade or switch to Edge or Chrome with aggressive Memory Saver / Sleeping Tabs enabled.
When to bring us in
For daily multi-monitor users with 30+ tabs as workflow: 16 GB is minimum, 32 GB comfortable. We advise on replacement.
See also
- My laptop is suddenly slowThree main suspects: a runaway background process, near-full disk, or a Windows update in progress.
- One specific application is slow for everyoneIf an app is slow for one person: local. For everyone at once: server side or vendor side.
- Opening files from the file server takes minutesOften the server itself is fine and the issue is network routing or stalling DNS resolution.
None of the above fits?
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