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Chrome slow with too many tabs? Free memory without closing them
Updated October 27, 2026
Lots of open tabs can slow Chrome and the rest of your computer down. You don't have to close them to fix it. Chrome can put the ones you aren't using to sleep, and they come back when you click them.
Before you close a big batch of tabs to speed things up, save them. Press Ctrl+Shift+D (Mac: ⌘+Shift+D) in each window and Chrome saves all of its tabs as bookmarks in a new folder (Google's shortcut list).
1. Turn on Memory Saver (free, built in)
- Open the ⋮ menu and choose Settings.
- On the left, choose Performance.
- Turn on Memory Saver and pick a level: Moderate, Balanced (recommended) or Maximum.
Google: "Chrome deactivates tabs that you aren't currently using. When you access an inactive tab, it automatically reloads." Google also lists things that can keep a tab from being deactivated, including active audio or video, screen sharing, active downloads, partly filled forms and pinned tabs (Google's performance help).
2. Keep important sites active
On the same Performance page, next to Always keep these sites active, select Add. Pick from your open tabs or type an address. Typing google.com also covers subdomains like drive.google.com (Google's performance help). Good candidates: email, calendar, chat, and anything you type long text into.
To see which tabs are asleep, turn on Inactive tabs appearance. Inactive tabs then show their icon inside a ring (Google's performance help).
3. On a laptop, know what Energy Saver does
Energy Saver "works automatically whenever your device is unplugged, or when your battery is low," and doesn't turn on while plugged in (Google's performance help). If Chrome only feels slow on battery, this may be why. You can turn it off for the session from its icon next to the address bar.
4. Find the tab that's actually hogging memory
Sometimes it isn't the number of tabs, it's one page. Open Chrome's Task Manager: ⋮, then More tools, then Task manager (Google's tab help). On Windows the shortcut is Shift+Esc (Google's shortcut list). Look at the Memory footprint column, then close or reload the worst page.
5. If you do close tabs, close them safely
Closing tabs frees the most memory, as long as you can get them back. Bookmark them first (the tip at the top). If you close something by mistake, press Ctrl+Shift+T (Mac: ⌘+Shift+T) right away (Google's shortcut list).
Questions
Do sleeping tabs lose my place?
The tab stays in your tab strip and reloads when you click it, so most sites come back to the same page. A page that holds something it doesn't save itself, like a half-typed message, may not. That's what the keep-active list is for.
Is there a limit to how many tabs Chrome can have open?
Google's help doesn't give one. In practice it depends on your computer's memory and the pages you have open.
Never lose a tab while you clean up
We make Never Lose Tabs, which saves every window, tab and tab group automatically, so closing or sleeping tabs never risks losing them:
- Restore points and an hourly backup file in Downloads/NeverLoseTabs, outside Chrome. Free forever.
- Tab sleep (Pro). Puts idle tabs to sleep with Chrome's own method after the time you choose (30 minutes to start). It skips pinned tabs, tabs playing sound, and a list of sites where a reload could lose typing, like Gmail, Google Docs and Slack, and you can add your own. It saves a restore point before any tab sleeps.
- Free protection, forever. Everything is unlocked for 14 days. After that, auto-save, crash recovery, backup files and restore stay free. Pro, including tab sleep, is a one-time $5.
If Chrome's Memory Saver is enough for you, use it. It's free and built in.
We make Never Lose Tabs. Chrome is a trademark of Google LLC. Never Lose Tabs is made by Coding Friend LLC and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.