Personalize Chrome performance

With Chrome’s performance settings, you can help active tabs run smoothly and extend your computer’s battery life.

Important: You can’t personalize your Chrome’s performance on mobile devices with iOS and Android. Learn other ways to speed up Chrome.

Turn Memory Saver on or off

To save your computer’s memory and help active tabs run smoothly, Chrome deactivates tabs that you aren't currently using. When you access an inactive tab, it automatically reloads.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More Settings.
3. On the left, click Performance.
4. Turn Memory Saver on or off.

Tips:

• To help your active video and gaming tabs run smoothly, turn on Memory Saver.
• Some settings and activities on your computer may prevent tab deactivation.
  • Active audio or video (playback or calls)
  • Screen share
  • Page notifications
  • Active downloads
  • Partially filled forms
  • Pinned tabs
  • Connected devices (USB or Bluetooth)

Keep specific sites active

To avoid a site from being deactivated, add it to your “Always keep these sites active” exclusion list.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More  Settings.
3. On the left, click Performance.
4. To the right of “Always keep these sites active,” click Add.
5. From here there are 2 options:
   • Add current sites: Select from available sites that are currently open in a tab.
     1. Click the box to the left of the site you want to add, and click Add.
     2. To go back, click Cancel.
   • Add sites manually
     1. Enter the web address.
     2. Click Add.
     3. To go back, click Cancel.

Tip: The web address format for the manual site exclusion policy is: [scheme://][.]host[:port][/path][@query].

Here are some examples of how to add sites manually if you want to create an exclusion for:

• Entire domains and subdomains: Exclude the URL scheme. For example, google.com matches and prevents deactivation of subdomains like drive.google.com and calendar.google.com.
• Specific domains, but not any subdomains: Include a dot (.) before the URL host. For example, .google.com won’t match and prevent deactivation of subdomains like www.google.com, drive.google.com, and calendar.google.com.
• Specific subdirectory: Include the URL path. For example, www.google.com/finance matches and prevents deactivation of all Google Finance pages, but won’t prevent deactivation of the www.google.com main pages.
• URL host and query components: Asterisks (*) can be used as wildcards. For example, https://* matches and prevents deactivation of all https sites and youtube.com/watch?v=* matches and prevents deactivation of YouTube videos.
  • Wildcards for prefix, suffix, or substring matches of the URL host component aren’t supported. For example, *oogle.com or google.com/* won’t match and prevent deactivation.

Turn Energy Saver on or off

To extend your device’s battery, Chrome reduces its image capture rate and other background tasks.

When Energy Saver is on, it works automatically whenever your device is unplugged, or when your battery is low. Energy Saver doesn't turn on when your device is plugged in.

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More Settings.
3. On the left, click Performance.
4. Turn Energy Saver on or off, then select the setting that you want.

Tips:

• To extend your device’s battery for a long road trip or plane ride, turn on Energy Saver.
• When Energy Saver is on, you may notice changes in gaming and video performance.

Related resources

• Speed up Google Chrome
• Reset Chrome settings to default
• Remove unwanted ads, pop-ups & malware