Open Chrome’s own Task Manager with Shift+Esc on Windows (on Mac: ⋮ menu → More tools → Task manager) and click the Memory footprint column to sort tabs by memory. The heaviest tabs rise to the top. Close or end the ones you don’t need — and save the ones you will need later before you close them.
Step 1: Open Chrome’s Task Manager
- Windows and Linux: press Shift+Esc while a Chrome window is in front.
- Mac: open the ⋮ menu → More tools → Task manager. You can also find it in the Window menu in the menu bar.
This is Chrome’s own task manager, not the one in Windows or macOS. The system tools only show a long list of “Google Chrome” or “Google Chrome Helper” processes with no names. Chrome’s version tells you which tab or extension each one belongs to.
Step 2: Sort by memory
Click the Memory footprint column header. Click again to switch between highest-first and lowest-first. Right-click any column header to add or remove columns, such as CPU or Network.
Step 3: Read the list correctly
| Row starts with | What it is |
|---|---|
| Tab: | A web page you have open |
| Extension: | An installed extension running in the background |
| Subframe: | Content from another site embedded in a page, such as an ad or a video player |
| Browser | Chrome itself — tabs bar, menus, settings |
| GPU Process | Drawing the screen; grows with video and graphics |
| Utility: / Service worker: | Background helpers for network, audio, and sites |
Three things often confuse people:
- Several tabs can share one process. Tabs from the same site are sometimes grouped together, so the memory shown belongs to all of them at once.
- The numbers move. A page keeps using more memory the longer it stays open, especially web apps with live feeds, chats or dashboards. Check again after a few minutes.
- Big is not always bad. A simple article may use tens of megabytes, while a web app — mail, documents, design tools, video — can use hundreds. What matters is whether you still need it.
Step 4: Free memory from the heavy ones
Select a row and click End process to stop it at once. For a tab, the page shows an error and reloads when you click it; anything you typed and didn’t save is lost. Usually it is simpler to close the tab itself.
If an extension is near the top and you rarely use it, turn it off in chrome://extensions.
Other ways to see memory per tab
Tab hover cards
In recent versions of Chrome, hovering over a tab can show its memory usage in the small card that pops up. If you don’t see it, look in Chrome’s settings for the tab hover card options — the switch has moved between versions.
chrome://discards
Type chrome://discards in the address bar for a technical table of every tab, whether Chrome has put it to sleep, and how likely it is to be discarded next. It is a page meant for developers, but it is safe to look at.
How much memory is too much?
The numbers in Chrome’s Task Manager only matter compared with how much memory your computer has and what else is running. To see the whole picture:
- Windows: open the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), go to the Performance tab and look at Memory. If it stays near full while you work, things will feel slow.
- Mac: open Activity Monitor, choose the Memory tab and look at the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom. Green is fine; yellow or red means the Mac is short of memory.
If overall memory is fine, a few heavy tabs are not a problem — leave them. If it is often full, Chrome is usually the easiest place to win memory back, because tabs are easy to close and reopen.
Let Chrome free memory for you: Memory Saver
Go to Settings → Performance and turn on Memory Saver. Chrome then frees memory from tabs you haven’t used for a while. The tab stays in your tab bar and reloads when you click it. Recent versions let you choose how quickly this happens, and you can list sites that should always stay active — useful for a music player or a page you are filling in.
Memory Saver helps the computer, but not you: the tabs are still in your tab bar, still competing for your attention. A hundred sleeping tabs are still a hundred tabs to look through.
The lasting fix: fewer open tabs, nothing lost
Look at your Task Manager list again and ask, for each heavy tab: am I using this right now? Usually the answer is “no, but I’ll need it later.” That is the tab to save and close.
LB TAB Layers is built for exactly that. It sits in Chrome’s side panel (Alt+T, or Option+T on Mac), and every group you make is saved as a Chrome bookmark folder.
- Put the tabs for each project in a group — drag them in from Solo Tabs, or right-click and choose Save to Folder.
- Press ■ on a group you aren’t using. Its tabs close and their memory is freed. They stay saved.
- Press ▶ when you need the project again. All its tabs open at once.
Unlike a sleeping tab, a closed tab uses no memory at all, and it is no longer in your tab bar. Unlike a plain close, it is still one click away.
| Method | Memory | Tab bar | Can you get it back? |
|---|---|---|---|
| End process | Freed | Tab stays, shows an error | Reload |
| Memory Saver | Mostly freed | Tab stays | Click it |
| Close the tab | Freed | Gone | Only from history |
| ■ on an LB TAB Layers group | Freed | Gone | ▶ on the group, any time |
For a broader checklist, see too many tabs open in Chrome?, and for the daily routine, how to close all tabs in Chrome.
Frequently asked questions
Q. How do I see how much memory each tab uses in Chrome?
Open Chrome’s Task Manager with Shift+Esc on Windows (on Mac: ⋮ menu → More tools → Task manager) and sort by the Memory footprint column.
Q. Why does one Task Manager row list several tabs?
Chrome sometimes runs tabs from the same site in one shared process. The memory shown is for all of those tabs together.
Q. Is it safe to click End process?
It is safe for Chrome, but the page stops immediately and anything you typed and didn’t save is lost. The tab reloads when you click it. Closing the tab is usually simpler.
Q. Does Memory Saver fix high memory use?
It frees memory from tabs you haven’t used for a while, which helps a lot. But the tabs stay in your tab bar. Saving tabs to groups and closing them frees memory and clears the tab bar.
▶ See it in action
Managing bookmarks and tabs together in the sidebar. (The video shows the Japanese UI.)
Free the memory. Keep the tabs.
Close a whole project with ■, bring it back with ▶. Try every feature free for 3 months.
Add to Chrome — it's free →