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Chrome using too much memory on a Mac? How to find the tab behind it

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Quick answer

To find which tab is using Chrome’s memory, choose Window → Task Manager in Chrome and sort by Memory footprint. Each tab, extension and helper is a row, and End process closes one. Safari has no task manager: Activity Monitor lists Safari’s tabs, usually by the site’s address. High browser memory is only a problem when Memory Pressure in Activity Monitor turns yellow or red. Then close the heaviest tabs, remove extensions you do not use, and turn on Memory Saver in Chrome’s Performance settings. Vitals, a system monitor for the Mac, shows Chrome as one row with its whole total, split into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser.

How to find the tab using the most memory in Chrome

  1. 01 In Chrome, choose Window → Task Manager in the menu bar.
  2. 02 Click the Memory footprint column header to sort by it. The heaviest rows are at the top.
  3. 03 Read the Task column. Tabs are listed as “Tab:” and the page title, extensions as “Extension:” and the name. The rest are Chrome’s own helpers, such as GPU Process and Browser.
  4. 04 Select a tab or extension and click End process to close it. A closed tab shows an error page; reload it when you need it again.
  5. 05 In Activity Monitor, click Memory and look at Memory Pressure at the bottom. If it is green, Chrome’s memory is not slowing the Mac down.

Brave has the same Task Manager, under Window → Task Manager. In Edge, choose ⋯ → More tools → Browser task manager. In Firefox, type about:processes in the address bar.

Chrome splits its work into separate processes: one or more per tab, one for graphics, one for the network, one per extension. That keeps a crashing tab from taking the browser down, and it is why Activity Monitor shows dozens of rows called Google Chrome Helper (Renderer), none of which says which tab it is. The browser’s own task manager can, and it is the first place to look.

What is using the memory, and where to see it

BrowserWhere to see memory per tabNotes
Chrome Window → Task Manager Sort by Memory footprint. Memory Saver is in Settings → Performance
Safari Activity Monitor → Memory Tab processes are usually named after the site’s address
Edge ⋯ → More tools → Browser task manager Sleeping tabs are in Settings → System and performance
Brave Window → Task Manager The same Task Manager as Chrome
Firefox about:processes in the address bar about:memory has a button to minimize memory use

Is high browser memory a problem?

Often not. A browser with 30 tabs using 6 GB on a 16 GB Mac is doing its job: keeping pages ready so they appear at once when you switch back. macOS gives memory back from apps that are not in use, and compresses what is left before it touches the disk.

The figure that says whether it matters is Memory Pressure at the bottom of Activity Monitor’s Memory tab. Green means everything fits, whatever the browser’s total. Yellow or red while you browse means the browser is taking memory other apps need, and the steps below help.

What makes a tab heavy

The same few kinds of page account for most of the memory in a busy browser.

  • Web apps you keep open all day, such as Gmail, Slack, Figma, Notion and Google Docs. They keep a lot in memory so they respond quickly.
  • Video and live streams, which hold frames and buffers, and pages with many videos, such as social media feeds.
  • Pages that have been open for days and keep loading more content as you scroll.
  • Extensions that run on every page, such as ad blockers, password managers and writing assistants. Each can add memory to every tab.
  • A page with a memory leak, whose Memory footprint in Task Manager keeps climbing while you do nothing with it.

What actually lowers it

Closing the one heavy tab does more than any general setting, so start with the top rows of the browser’s task manager.

  • Close or reload the heaviest tabs. A tab that has been open for days often drops to a fraction of its size when reloaded.
  • Remove extensions you do not use, at chrome://extensions in Chrome. An extension that runs on every page adds memory to every tab.
  • Turn on Memory Saver in Chrome’s Settings → Performance. It frees memory from tabs you have not looked at for a while, and they reload when you go back.
  • Quit and reopen the browser once in a while if its total keeps growing over days. With Continue where you left off, in Chrome’s Settings → On startup, your tabs come back.
  • Skip memory cleaner apps. They force out memory the browser asks for again straight away, and everything is slower until it is back.

Why Activity Monitor shows so many Chrome processes

Activity Monitor lists every process on its own, and Chrome is dozens of them: Google Chrome for the browser, Google Chrome Helper for the network and other services, Google Chrome Helper (GPU) for graphics, and Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) for tabs and extensions. Choose View → All Processes, Hierarchically to see them grouped under Google Chrome.

Adding up the Memory column overstates the total, because memory the helper processes share is counted in each of them. Chrome’s Task Manager, Vitals and the Memory Pressure graph are better guides than a sum you make yourself.

What Vitals adds

Vitals shows Chrome as one row, and splits it into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser itself.

  • One row per browser with every helper counted in, so the figure beside it is the browser’s whole memory and CPU
  • Inside Google Chrome: the total split into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser. The same for Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc and Dia, and Slack, VS Code and similar apps by window
  • 30 days of memory for every app, so you can see whether the browser grew over the week or only today
  • A notification when an app keeps growing in memory, and when the Mac runs short of memory, naming the two apps using the most

Good to know

  • Tabs are counted together. Browsers do not tell other apps which process belongs to which tab, so only the browser’s own task manager names the tab. In Firefox, extensions are counted with the tabs for the same reason.
  • Vitals does not close tabs or extensions. It can quit the browser, after asking.
Get Vitals for $9 $9 during the launch, $29 after it. 14-day refund.

Questions people ask

Why is Chrome using so much memory on my Mac?

Each tab, extension and helper runs as its own process, and web apps such as Gmail, Slack and Figma keep a lot in memory. Choose Window → Task Manager in Chrome to see which one is heaviest.

How do I see which Chrome tab is using the most memory?

In Chrome, choose Window → Task Manager and click the Memory footprint column. Tabs are listed as Tab: followed by the page title. Select one and click End process to close it.

Does Safari use less memory than Chrome?

It depends on the pages and extensions more than the browser. Compare them on your own tabs: Activity Monitor lists Safari’s tabs, usually by the site’s address, and Chrome’s Task Manager lists its tabs by title.

Is it safe to quit Google Chrome Helper in Activity Monitor?

It closes whatever that helper was running: a tab, an extension or Chrome’s graphics. Chrome recovers, but you lose that tab’s state. Use Chrome’s Task Manager instead, where you can see which one you are closing.

Does Memory Saver in Chrome help?

Yes, when many tabs are open and memory pressure is yellow or red. It frees memory from tabs you have not used for a while, which reload when you return to them.

Is there an app that shows a browser’s total memory on a Mac?

Vitals shows each browser as one row with all of its processes counted in, and splits it into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser itself.

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