Microsoft Edge is highly aggressive when it comes to battery management on laptops. If your laptop is unplugged and the battery drops below 20%, Edge will automatically activate a feature called “Efficiency Mode.” This mode forcefully throttles the browser’s CPU usage, aggressively puts background tabs to sleep, and limits the frame rate of animations to save power.
While this is theoretically helpful for stretching out the last few minutes of battery life, it can severely degrade your browsing experience. If you are actively working in a complex web application, rendering a 3D model in the browser, or watching a 4K video, having the browser suddenly throttle its own performance can cause massive stuttering, lagging, and unresponsiveness.
You can configure Microsoft Edge to prioritize maximum performance at all times, strictly forbidding it from automatically enabling Efficiency Mode.
How to Turn Off Automatic Efficiency Mode in Edge
You must dive into the System and Performance settings to disable this trigger.
- Open the Microsoft Edge browser.
- Click the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on System and performance.
- Scroll down the right pane to the “Optimize Performance” section.
- Look for the dropdown menu labeled Turn on efficiency mode when (or similar language depending on your Edge version).
- Click the dropdown menu and change the selection from “Unplugged, low battery” to Never.
- (Optional) You can also completely turn off the master toggle for Efficiency mode located immediately above it.
Microsoft Edge will immediately stop monitoring your laptop’s battery state. It will run at maximum performance with full CPU access right up until the moment your laptop battery completely dies.