Your browser is hogging resources and slows everything down? Find out here how to make Edge save power, battery time, CPU cycles and memory permanently with memory saver and efficiency mode.
First, Downside-Up Fakes
The gold bars in movies and on TV are obvious fakes, of source—lightweights easily carried and thrown around.
Typically, that is not all that is wrong with the bullions, however: too frequently, they’re also upside down, with a heavy downside: the wide rim of the trapezoidal shape acts as a handle to grant a solid grip when you pick up the heavy bricks. If the wide side is at the bottom, the shape makes it even harder to get a bullion off the ground or table.
Now, speaking of heavy lifting—how about making the web and browser tabs a bit easier on the CPU and memory with Edge?
How to Use Microsoft Edge Memory Saver and Efficiency Mode
Save CPU, Memory and Network Traffic
Time needed: 3 minutes
To enable power-saving mode in Microsoft Edge browser permanently (on Windows, Mac and Linux):
- Open the Settings and more (three dots) menu in Edge.
Edge keyboard shortcut: You can press Alt F to open the menu.
- Select Settings in the menu that has appeared.
- Go to the System and performance category.
Shortcut: You can also go to edge://settings/system directly.
- Turn on Efficiency mode under Optimize Performance.
Desktop: On a desktop PC (without battery power), enable Turn on efficiency mode (under Optimize Performance).
- Also enable Save resources with sleeping tabs.
Efficiency not only in the browser: How to Make Your Windows 10 Laptop Run Cooler
How to Use Microsoft Edge Memory Saver and Efficiency Mode: FAQ
What does efficiency mode accomplish in Edge?
Edge’s efficiency mode to save resources works with two primary means:
- Sleeping tabs: With efficiency mode, Edge is more eager to put background tabs to sleep. After 5 minutes of inactivity, a tab and its resources freeze. That means no more activity happens on the page and no CPU cycles must be used to update it. In this regard, sleeping tabs work much like sleeping or hibernating a computer.
In addition, putting a tab to sleep also acts as a memory saver, freeing a portion of the RAM otherwise devoted to the tab. - Reducing quality: If Edge is not the foreground app, efficiency mode also dials back resources devoted to power-hungry tasks such as video playback and animations, for example by reducing the rendering quality or slowing down event timers on web sites (even in the foreground tab).
When is a tab put into sleep mode?
Every tab goes to sleep
- after 5 minutes in the background.
Certain activities do prevent tabs from going to sleep even in the background, of course. These include mostly
- video or audio playback,
- video or audio recording and
- the page actively using a database.
(How to use Edge memory saver and efficiency mode to save battery power, CPU and memory tested with version 115–121; updated February 2024)