Why Chrome Can Use a Lot of RAM—and How Memory Saver Helps

Chrome’s RAM usage is partly tied to the way its underlying Chromium architecture divides browser work. Instead of placing every function in one process, Chromium uses different processes for browser management, web-page rendering and plug-ins. Extensions can also operate separately.

That design separates the browser’s core functions from the code used to display websites. Chromium says this separation helps contain rendering failures and limits access between web content and other browser components. Renderer processes are sandboxed to isolate web content from the rest of the system.

The tradeoff is that a computer’s process monitor may not present Chrome’s memory use as one simple figure. Chromium’s documentation says shared memory can be included in the totals for more than one process. As a result, the combined number shown by operating-system tools can appear higher than the memory being used after shared areas are accounted for.

Chromium also provides an internal memory page that combines information from active browser processes. That view can offer a broader picture than looking at one process at a time.

Chrome’s Memory Saver is designed for tabs that are not currently being used. It deactivates those tabs to make computer memory available and loads them again when they become active. Chrome offers three Memory Saver levels—Moderate, Balanced and Maximum—with different behavior for when tabs are deactivated.

Chrome can also show memory usage for individual tabs. Users can exempt selected websites from Memory Saver, allowing those sites to remain active instead of being deactivated by the feature.

Taken together, the process model and the memory-management tools explain why Chrome’s memory display can require some interpretation. The process layout supports isolation between web content and browser components, while Memory Saver gives users controls for reducing memory use from tabs they are not using.