How to fix high memory usage problem on Microsoft Edge

Are you experiencing a "High Memory Usage Detected" warning when browsing on Microsoft Edge? That means some browser processes are using too much memory (RAM).

Luckily, you can easily identify and close those resource-hungry processes and customize some browser features to reduce memory usage.

1. Preliminary check

Begin the Microsoft Edge troubleshooting process by applying the following checks and fixes:

1. Close tabs you don't use.
2. Pause active downloads temporarily.
3. Make sure your browser is up to date.

If the preliminary checks above don't fix the problem and you get the warning again, apply the remaining troubleshooting measures.

2. Close processes that use a lot of resources

Next, close resource-hungry processes to free up memory resources. The built-in task manager in Microsoft Edge makes this very simple.

1. Click on the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner.

2. Navigate to More tools > Browser task manager.

3. Click the Memory column header to sort tasks based on memory usage in descending order.

4. Close the most resource-intensive but unnecessary tasks. To end a process, select the task and click the End process button.

Make sure you don't kill essential browser processes (like GPU processes or the browser process itself) and save changes before closing any tabs.

3. Activate Edge Efficiency Mode

Edge Efficiency Mode is designed to minimize power consumption and does this by reducing resource usage. When enabled, Efficiency Mode puts inactive tabs to sleep and optimizes other tab activities to keep memory usage to a minimum, reducing memory usage.

1. Click on the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner and open Settings.
2. Go to the System and Performance tab on the left.
3. Under Optimize Performance, turn on the toggle next to Efficiency Mode and select Maximum Savings mode. Also, make sure to enable the toggles next to Save resources with sleeping tabs and Fade sleeping tabs.

4. Disable hardware acceleration and boot acceleration

Hardware acceleration offloads some processing tasks from the CPU and uses your dedicated hardware, such as the GPU, to handle them, improving browser performance. Likewise, the startup acceleration feature preloads some essential browser processes to launch your browser faster.

These features speed up your browser but at the cost of using a little more memory. So you can free up your system resources by disabling them.

1. Click on the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner.
2. Navigate to the System and performance tab on the left.
3. In System settings, turn off the toggles next to Startup boost and Use hardware acceleration when available.

5. Check your browser for malware

Browser malware is often programmed to mine cryptocurrency or support other computing needs of cybercriminals. When your device is infected with malware, memory usage increases significantly as the malware uses your system resources.

To ensure your browser is not hijacked, close all tabs after saving progress and restart the browser. Then, leave the browser idle for a few seconds. Then, open a resource monitoring application, such as Windows Task Manager or macOS Activity Monitor, and determine how much memory the browser consumes while in idle mode.

If memory consumption is high, even when no processes are running, your browser may be hijacked or infected with a virus. Therefore, scan your browser with a security extension or anti-malware application and remove the hijacker.

6. Disable browser extensions

Turn off any browser extensions and see if that fixes the problem. If so, then one (or more) of your browser extensions are consuming too much memory. To find out which browser extension is causing the problem, enable all extensions and then disable them one by one. When you do that, observe memory usage in your browser's task manager.

If disabling a particular extension suddenly reduces memory usage, that's the culprit. So, disable that extension or delete it permanently.

7. Apply browser-specific fixes

If the error persists after applying the above fixes, you should clear your browser cache to remove outdated records. If this doesn't work, try resetting the browser to make sure misconfigured settings aren't the cause. If that doesn't work, reinstall the browser from scratch - but hopefully it doesn't come to that!

Marvin Fry

Update 28 December 2023