Google presented the Memory saving function to its Chrome browser in February 2023 and has been improving it ever since. Now, a new option will give users even more control over Memory Saver by introducing a way to configure its aggressiveness.
While Memory Saver is a great tool as it fixes Chrome's RAM issue by identifying tabs that are not being used and removing them from memory, there is nothing that can control when a tab is marked as inactive and therefore Is postponed. But a flag recently discovered in Chrome Canary by Windows report shows that Google is testing a feature that will give you three memory saving options: conservative, medium, and aggressive.
Once the toggle settings are enabled, you will have access to those three settings:
- Moderate memory savings: With this setting, your tabs become inactive after a long period of time. Provides a balance between memory usage and keeping recently accessed tabs active.
- Balanced memory savings: Selecting balanced memory saving means that your tabs will become inactive after a moderate period of time.
- Maximum memory savings: If you choose maximum memory saver, your tabs will become inactive after a shorter period of time. This aggressive mode minimizes memory usage, but may require more frequent tab reloads.
Google is also adding a new visual cue for inactive tabs, a dotted circle that will appear on inactive tabs to indicate that they have been put to sleep and are no longer consuming memory.
According to the report, Google has been extensively testing the tool for quite some time. The tech giant “tested a multi-state option for memory mode with heuristic mode, fixed timer and discard, and offered options behind flags to select when tabs can be discarded.” And while those tests ultimately went nowhere in terms of new features, influenced improvements made in Memory Saver.
There is currently no timeline for rolling out this memory saving update to all Chrome users, but once it is, you should be able to access it through the performance settings in chrome://settings/performance.
