How to Enable Memory Saver and Energy Saver in Chrome?

Google Chrome is one of the highest resource consuming apps regardless of whether you use Windows, macOS or even ChromeOS. It will drain your battery quickly and drag the system with high memory consumption. You can easily find this from Task Manager in Windows or simply clicking on the battery icon in macOS. Google finally addresses these issues by updating Chrome with two new performance optimization features in version 108. They are called Energy Saver and Memory Saver and here we will explain how to enable these options in your Chrome browser.

Chrome Performance Settings

The new features are part of Chrome settings page under “Performance” section. You should find this “Performance” section in chrome://settings page between “Privacy and security” and “Appearance” sections.

Though Google mentioned the features were released with version 108, they are not yet fully rolled out to all the users. Even we have checked two systems with same Chrome version – one is having the Performance settings section and other does not. So, make sure to update your Chrome if it is not showing Performance section. Otherwise also do not worry, you can enable the settings using experimental features till the time they are eventually rolled out to you.

Enable Memory Saver in Chrome

This is the feature to reduce memory usage of Chrome when you run too many open tabs. Chrome will release the memory occupied by inactive tabs. Other active tabs and applications can make use of the released memory thus avoiding system slowness. Chrome will reload the inactive tabs when you access them again.

Memory Saver is part of the Performance section. If the performance section is visible, by default it will show “Memory Saver” section. In this case, you do not need to enable the experimental flag. Otherwise, you need to enable the flag to activate “Memory Saver” which will eventually show the “Performance” section.

• Open Chrome and go to chrome://flags URL in the address bar.
• Search for “performance” and scroll down to bottom of the page to find “Enable the high efficiency mode feature in the settings”.
• Click on the dropdown against the option and select “Enabled” from the list.

• Click “Relaunch” button to close and reopen the browser.

• Go to chrome://settings and now you will see the “Performance” section.
• Click on “Performance” section and then turn on “Memory Saver” option.

• You may want to bypass memory saver settings for few sites which you want to always keep active. In such case, click “Add” button and enter the URL to add in the exception list.

Sometimes, Chrome will also show a notification to enable “Memory Saver”. You can simply click “Turn On” button to enable the feature in settings page.

As mentioned, Chrome will not refresh inactive tabs when you enable “Memory Saver” option. When you access any inactive tabs, Chrome will show you a “Memory Saver” icon in the address bar. Click on that to see how much memory was released by keeping that tab inactive.

Enable Battery Saver in Chrome

Battery Saver is another feature which limits the background activities when the system is running low on battery. As Google claims, this feature also will restrict smooth scrolling and other visual effects thus extending the battery usage. This is yet an experimental feature in Chrome which means you need to enable the flag for using it in your browser.

• Go to chrome://flag URL and search for “performance”.
• Scroll down to bottom and find “Enable the battery saver mode feature in settings” flag.
• Click the dropdown and select “Enabled” option.
• Relaunch the browser and go to chrome://settings/performance URL to access Performance settings.

• You will see an additional Energy Saver option enabled by default under “Power” section.

• The Energy Saver performance setting has two options – “Turn on when my battery is 20% or lower” and “Turn on when my computer is unplugged”. Select the option that is best suitable for your need.
• After enabling Energy Saver, you will see an icon in the browser’s address bar. Click on it to quickly turn off the feature when you have sufficient battery power.

Note: You will not see Energy Saver option on desktops that do not have battery like iMac. In this case, Chrome will not show the Energy Saver setting even though you have enabled the flag.

Final Words

After so many years of users complaining about battery and memory issues with Chrome, Google finally released some updates to fix the issues. If the features not available in your system, you can enable them with experimental flags and start using them.