Chrome’s new memory-saving feature made my laptop worse

Chrome is known to be fast and convenient, but it takes up a significant amount of RAM. So, when Chrome rolled out the Memory Saver feature, I was optimistic and excited to try it. On paper, this feature sounds like a lifesaver. Memory Saver promises to free up RAM by putting your inactive apps to sleep so they don’t eat precious system resources in the background. This is supposed to make your system a lot smoother.

After using Chrome’s memory-saving feature for a while, I found it’s doing the opposite for me. Rather than improving performance, it has made my laptop slower, unpredictable, and somewhat annoying to use.

What Chrome’s Memory Saver actually does

Only the idea is clever

The Memory Saver feature is designed to reduce Chrome’s RAM usage and improve performance. To this end, Chrome freezes inactive tabs to allow active tabs and other essential applications to run smoothly. When you return to a tab, Chrome reloads it for you. This sounds harmless because it doesn’t automatically close your tabs. All your tabs remain visible, but they don’t use any memory.

In real life, when you go back to the inactive tab, it behaves as if you’re opening that web page from scratch. This means your pages can reload unexpectedly, and forms might lose unsaved content. If you’re browsing casually, this won’t matter much. On the flip side, if you routinely keep your research pages and essential apps open throughout the day, this feature might disrupt your experience.

How Memory Saver made my laptop worse

I was annoyed with constant tab reloads

The biggest issue for me was constant tab reloading. When I switched back to the tab I was using 20 minutes earlier, Chrome would reload it for me. Frankly speaking, this wasn’t an issue when I was using fast websites like Google Search and YouTube. But when I was working with heavier sites like a CMS, it completely disrupted my workflow.

Also, it was damn annoying to lose unsaved content. And this happened to me a couple of times. My everyday work revolves around working with web apps like CMS editors and note-taking tools that don’t autosave aggressively. When Chrome puts these tabs to sleep, it can wipe out your progress. Since Chrome doesn’t warn you before doing this, it becomes a serious issue for users who work in the browser.

Then I had to deal with inconsistent CPU behavior. Instead of making my system lighter, Memory Saver made it heavier at times. When a tab reloads, it triggers a fresh wave of CPU activity. When Chrome refreshes several tabs at once, the spikes become impossible to ignore. As a result, fans would make noise, pages stuttered, and Chrome briefly felt more demanding than before the feature was enabled.

So you see, instead of a performance boost, I ran into several issues. I felt as if Chrome was prioritizing RAM statistics over usability.

It doesn’t always save RAM as expected

The tabs using the most memory usually stay active anyway

On paper, Chrome’s Memory Saver sounds like a surefire way to cut down on RAM usage. That being said, it doesn’t always save a significant amount of memory. In my case, Chrome certainly discarded inactive tabs, but I did not notice any dramatic improvements.

That’s because the Memory Saver feature only freezes those tabs that are truly inactive. Many resource-intensive tabs, such as those playing audio or video or using screen sharing, are always active. This means that tabs consuming the most memory, like streaming platforms and complex web apps, remain fully loaded anyway. On the flip side, Chrome freezes lightweight pages that weren’t significantly affecting performance.

Also, Chrome itself is a resource-heavy browser even when some tabs are put to sleep. Active tabs use memory, extensions keep running in the background, and many websites immediately reload everything as soon as you go back to them.

Memory Saver might slow down older or mid-range systems

When efficiency turns into stuttery performance

Reloading tabs requires CPU resources. If you own a high-end laptop with sufficient RAM and a fast SSD, tabs will reload quickly. But on older or mid-range systems with limited RAM, this feature might have downsides. Each tab reload might take longer and use more CPU. These laptops usually struggle more with reloading media-heavy tabs, running multiple browser extensions, and repeatedly reconnecting web apps in the background. When Google Chrome’s Memory Saver constantly moves tabs between active and inactive states, the overall browsing experience can feel inconsistent and sluggish rather than smooth and responsive.

How to turn off Chrome’s Memory Saver

Thankfully, it’s very simple

If Memory Saver isn’t doing any good for your system, you can easily turn it off.

1. Open Chrome’s Settings.
2. Go to Performance from the left sidebar.
3. Under the Memory section, turn off the Memory Saver toggle.

In case you don’t want to disable this feature completely, you can also add specific websites to Chrome’s “Always keep these sites active” list.

Better alternatives I have found

Memory Saver isn’t a terrible feature. In fact, it is designed to help users who work with multiple tabs or have limited system resources. But it’s not made for everyone. If I talk about myself, I don’t find it useful. It was disrupting my workflow, mainly due to frequent tab reloads. After turning off Memory Saver, I started trying other reliable ways to reduce Chrome’s memory consumption. Thankfully, some of them worked far better.

I started closing my unused tabs manually rather than relying on automation. Now, I also use tab grouping. It helps me stay organized without discarding any tabs. While trying several lightweight browser extensions, I came across OneTab, and it has helped me reduce browser clutter and memory usage. It organizes all my open tabs into a single list within a single tab, significantly reducing RAM usage.