Why is Chrome eating up all my RAM?
I only opened 5 tabs and it's already telling me there's no more memory. It wasn't like this before, it's been slow as hell ever since I updated to Windows 11. How do I fix this?
3 answers
★ Best answer
But 5 tabs shouldn't bring you to your knees like that. I'd think two things: first, check how many extensions you have installed because some are really shitty and eat up memory like nothing, second it could be that Windows 11 changed something in memory management (happens to me sometimes after updates too). Try disabling the extensions one by one and see if anything changes, or open Chrome's task manager (shift+esc) to see which tab or extension is devouring everything. If nothing works, maybe it's time to take a look at the total RAM you have - if you don't have much available to start with, then Chrome is just gonna eat it all up.
Chrome is famous for being a RAM hog, especially if you have heavy extensions installed. With only 5 tabs it shouldn't already be maxed out, so you probably have something wrong. First of all check if you have useless extensions - go to chrome://extensions and disable or delete the ones you don't really use. Then try clearing the cache and browsing data (Settings > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data), sometimes it helps more than you'd think.
As for Windows 11, it's possible the update made things worse. A stupid tip but one that actually works is restarting your PC, sounds obvious but it often fixes RAM issues. If it keeps happening, open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and see which processes are eating up the most memory - it could be Windows itself screwing things up, not just Chrome. Sometimes Windows 11 has problems with buggy updates.
Last tip: if you really can't fix it, try using Edge instead of Chrome, it uses less RAM because it's based on Chromium but it's more optimized for Windows. Or, if you want to stick with Chrome, disable extensions one by one to figure out which one's the culprit. Let me know if anything changes after the restart at least!
Especially if you've got extensions installed running in the background - I myself uninstalled like 10 useless extensions and the difference was noticeable. Windows 11 is initially a bit heavier than Windows 10, so combined with Chrome it really struggles; try checking in Task Manager which Chrome processes are using the most RAM and disable the extensions you don't actually use, those are often the ones that ruin everything. Another obvious thing but it works: restart the browser once in a while instead of keeping it open for days, and if you really can't manage that you could try Edge which is lighter but honestly the best solution is getting rid of the useless extensions.
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