Safari: This webpage is using significant memory

This happens sometimes when a webpage is trying to run too many background processes. This is a built in safety feature that tries to help prevent your battery from being drained, and could also warn you against suspicious activity like background crypto-mining.

Anyhow if you really want to watch this page less encumbered, I would just try loading it on a different browser such as Chrome, which seems to do better at handling extensive video content. I basically just use chrome for all my streaming services, and retain Safari for business and work use. This keeps them compartmentalized also so that you're not jeopardizing sensitive information.

Remember you can also adjust settings for any particular website in Safari by right clicking (Control Key + left click) on the web address bar. This will bring up a context menu that has: Setting For This Website...

This allows you to set specific permissions including Auto-Play of video, or Never Allow, et.

I have this problem too. If you open Activity Monitor you will probably see multiple processes called Safari Web Content (cached). The only way to put things back to normal again is to quit Safari and re-launch it.

I second this! I have been bedeviled by this annoying Safari popup message for months. It started appearing about 6 months ago on my 2012 MacBook Air with 4gb of memory. That machine was showing other signs of age so I traded it in for a 2020 MacBook Pro with 16gb of memory. Imagine my dismay upon seeing the same annoying prompt on a brand new MacBook with plenty of memory. Facebook's website is the culprit in my case. The message literally pops up every 2-3 minutes, dozens of times a day. I implore Apple to let users disable this. Per the advice of AndreWantsToHelp, I have asked Apple to address this issue on their feedback page: https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html ... I implore others to do the same.

In the last year, maybe two, the only two websites on which I get the "This page is using extensive memory. Close this window to ..." Facebook & Shockwave (puzzles). So for Shockwave, I use Chrome; for Facebook, I just deal with it and open new windows periodically. I'm sorry you're having some, too. —TJ Martin =|

None of these answer the request to disable.

Because there is no means to disable it without Safar product development deciding to make a programmatic change to it, or the watchdog daemon that detects these issues.

I agree, it baffles me why Apple will not fix this. Oh well, back to Chrome.

I’m having a lot of trouble with this as well. Closing Safari and reopening does not work. Force quitting does. Not something I like to do. My pro is new, as well, and I have plenty of memory, not a lot of downloaded extras, either. What is happening does not make sense and def needs a fix. Apple, please help! For me, it seems to be most problematic on web pages with lots of ads that I don’t even pay attention to. Not so much video streaming, although I do have trouble then, too.

Please please please -- just give us a setting to DISABLE this warning message.

I have to run webapps for work that are resource intensive. They are what they are. No amount of content blocking is going to change that. My Macbook is plugged in. It isn't even overheating. It isn't sluggish. Everything is fine. Yet -- YET -- Safari decides it MUST interrupt me sporadically to inform me that I may be having an issue and should probably do something about it. I am not having an issue! My issue is a warning message I cannot turn off changes the aspect ratio of my browser to give me a warning I don't need and can't get rid of! And if I close it... it just comes back whenever it wants! What on EARTH could be the purpose of this? Please please please -- just give Safari a lil button that says "Stop warning me a website is using a lot of resources, I am an adult human who can make his own choices."

I am 100% tired of seeing this, it comes up on a lot of websites, not streaming sites for me. I went back to safari after all the security issues with Chrome and I would like them to make a disable feature for this. They were supposed to improve Safari, and this doesn't feel like an improvement

I totally agree, Apple has to distribute a fix on this. I am encountering this annoying memory notification just by watching Netflix on a brand new MacBook Air M1 with 8GB of RAM with just 5 more tabs open in Safari. This causes seeing this grey bar on the top of the screen during the movie. Seriously?

this doesn't work as I have the same settings, but it keeps sending me the message and shutting down the website. Its ridiculous I'll be in the middle of a lecture and I get the message and it reloads the page. this is a brand new iMac I just purchased.

not happy they need to fix this issue.

please and thank you

I have this issue with Big Sur 11.2 and after sending all these reports to Apple Developers it still is happening. I do not expect this to happen when I am running only Safari and an on 1 web site, Instagram. This is happening on a 2019 Powerbook 16" 16GB and 2.8 processor. I had though that Bib Sur was supposed to make things better. But Catalina ran better for me and I never got this message. Is this some bad programing language that Apple will debug sometime?