Chrome is notorious for using a lot of RAM, though it’s gotten better over the years. At a time when computers are coming with less memory because of shortages caused by the AI data center buildout, conserving RAM is as important as ever.

I was surprised to find a toggle, turned on by default, in the Windows version of Google Chrome that was unknowingly using over 1GB of RAM for Chrome even when the app wasn’t even open. After turning off this option, I immediately saw a large reduction in memory usage from Chrome.

Here’s what I did, and how you can do it too.

Chrome has a toggle you can turn off

“Continue running background apps when Chrome is closed”

By default, Chrome keeps a setting enabled (it’s a Windows-only setting, so don’t go looking for it if you’re a Mac user on Chrome), granting Chrome permission to run in the background. And it does, but not for reasons you might think. You might think that Chrome runs in the background if you’ve enabled progressive web apps (PWAs), or if you’ve turned on notifications for your favorite websites or apps, but that is not the case anymore.

That’s because most web apps and notification services running in the background are from the days of the Chrome Apps platform and the always-on extensions from years back (like these extensions that fix things), and Google has retired both. Modern notifications and PWAs wake up, run as needed, and go back to sleep, so they never keep a process running in my testing. Chrome today is much more efficient about how it uses system resources and this background process facet is a good example of efficiency Google has added.

To access this toggle, go to Chrome > three dots (upper right) > Settings > System > uncheck “continue running background apps when Chrome is closed.”

So then, what does this toggle impact if PWAs and notification services aren’t kept alive unnecessarily?

In testing, I found one major thing that this setting impacts, and it’s Gemini, assuming you have it enabled in Chrome (if you do, you’ll also have a corresponding system tray icon in Windows). You can see this for yourself by closing Chrome, then opening Task Manager in Windows and looking under Background Processes — you’ll see Google Chrome listed, likely using upwards of 1GB of RAM (my PC was using even more than that) even if you’re not using Chrome and it’s closed.

So then what happens when you turn off the “continue running background apps” toggle? Things get much better.

Does this toggle really force Chrome to use less RAM?

How I saved more than 500MB of RAM while Chrome was inactive

As you can see in the before-and-after screenshot above, I was able to reduce the background Chrome process from 1053MB down to 510MB, a reduction of 51% just by changing this toggle. Note this isn’t memory utilization while Chrome is open — but fully closed — and the reported RAM amounts are from the “Background Processes” part of Task Manager (and if you want even more visibility into what your computer is doing, check out Process Explorer). Obviously, it doesn’t make sense that Chrome would use 1053MB of RAM when it’s not even open, so I was happy that I was able to drastically reduce memory usage with this toggle.

The verdict

I saved a half-gig of RAM with this change

There wasn’t much of a downside to flipping this toggle off to stop Chrome from running a full gigabyte background process even while Chrome is not running, even if you’re a Gemini user. If you like using Gemini with Chrome, like I do, it reloads all necessary resources when you open Chrome again. However, if you have enabled notifications from various sites and services, it’s possible these notifications might be delayed when Chrome is closed if you turn off this option.

While there are numerous ways to get Chrome to use less RAM, most of them relate to how your computer allocates memory to Chrome when you’re actually using it, which comes with trade-offs (like reduced speed when switching tabs or opening Chrome from a cold start). But this particular tweak is one simple checkbox that gives your system more memory when you’re not using the browser, which is a big and easy win.

OS

Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS/iPadOS, ChromeOS

Developer

Google LLC

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google LLC, built for speed, security, and integration with Google services. It uses the Blink rendering engine (formerly WebKit) and supports extensions, tab sandboxing, synchronization across devices, and frequent updates.