About
Frozen web pages, or a battery that is draining too quickly, a precursor to the ever-frustrating dead tab, can be intensely frustrating all the more so when you can’t accurately identify what’s causing the slowdown or random dead tab. If you want to learn more about what windows or processes that are demanding too much of your memory and processing power, checking Google Chrome using its built-in task manager can be a great way to diagnose your issue.
Chrome Task Manager is a built-in tool found in Google Chrome that displays the CPU usage, memory usage, network usage, and the Process ID of each open tab and plug-in. It also allows you to quit any processes that are monopolizing your PC's resources. Quitting some of your unused tabs and plug-ins can help improve your computer's battery life and improve the computer's overall responsiveness.
Environment
You launch the Chrome Task Manager in the same way on any Windows, Mac, and Chrome OS computers.
Steps
- Open your Chrome browser.
- Select the Chrome menu button in the upper right corner of the browser window. The icon is three vertically aligned dots.
- When the drop-down menu appears, navigate to the More tools option.
- When the sub menu appears, select the option labeled Task manager to open the task manager on the screen.
Alternatively, you can also access the Chrome Task Manager by selecting both the Shift & Escape keys.
On Chrome OS, you must select both Search & Escape keys instead.
Once you have opened the Chrome Task Manager, this screen will be displayed:
A list of tabs that you have open will now appear. To quit a specific tab, you must select the tab that you want to quit and then select End process. Alone, one or two extensions might not be taking up much of your available memory, but if you’ve been adding extensions since you started using Google Chrome, you might have a dozen or more running at once, needlessly consuming more and more of your RAM. To reduce the amount of memory in use, take a moment and reassess the number of extensions you’ve got installed and how often you actually use them. Hint: you’re probably not using all of them.
Next to each task icon, you will notice the usage of each resource. Quitting these processes will close any tabs you have open, so always make sure that any important work is saved.