How to Enable Memory Saver in Google Chrome

Google Chrome is notoriously power-hungry. If you are the type of user who keeps 30 or 40 tabs open at once, Chrome will aggressively consume your computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory), leaving very little resources available for your other applications. This leads to system freezing, slow performance, and terrible battery life on laptops.

To combat this, Google introduced a built-in feature called Memory Saver. When activated, Chrome automatically puts background tabs to “sleep,” freeing up massive amounts of RAM for the tabs you are actually using.

How to Turn on Memory Saver

Memory Saver is built directly into the core Chrome browser, so you do not need to install any third-party extensions to use it.

1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner of the window.
3. Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
4. In the left-hand sidebar of the Settings page, click on Performance.
5. Look for the section labeled Memory Saver.
6. Toggle the switch to the ON position (it will turn blue).

Once enabled, Chrome will silently monitor your tabs. If you haven’t clicked on a tab for a while, Chrome will suspend it. The tab remains visible in your tab bar, but its active processes are killed. When you eventually click that tab again, Chrome will instantly reload the page.

How to Prevent Specific Websites from Sleeping

While Memory Saver is fantastic for general browsing, you absolutely do not want it suspending certain websites. If Chrome suspends an active web-based email client, a chat application (like Slack or WhatsApp Web), or a page where you are actively uploading a large file, you could miss notifications or lose data.

You can add exceptions to ensure critical websites stay awake forever.

1. Go back to Settings > Performance.
2. Under the Memory Saver toggle, look for the section titled Always keep these sites active.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Type the web address of the site you want to protect (for example, mail.google.com or slack.com).
5. Click Add.

Chrome will now aggressively save memory across your browser while completely ignoring the specific websites you added to your whitelist.