Enormous amount of Physical Memory usage for Chrome. Why?

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Level 1

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Enormous amount of Physical Memory usage for Chrome. Why?

I locked the screen of my M1 Mac Mini with 16 gigabytes of memory and Big Sur 11.6. last night, and when I turned it on today, this window was here.

It says that my Google Chrome was using over one hundred gigabytes of memory. I left a total of about 20 tabs open overnight, but that's not an unusual amount for me to leave open regularly. A standard Force Quit seems to have resolved things fortunately.

I suppose more than just being curious about how a computer with 16 gig of memory can have over 100 gig of memory in use, and how Chrome can need that huge amount of memory in the first place, I really want to know if this can potentially damage my Mac? Could I wake up one morning and find my memory fried or something because the computer has been working through the night trying to cope with this absurd amount of memory? Any help is appreciated.

Mac mini, macOS 11.6

Posted on Nov 8, 2021 12:02 AM

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Answer 1

Ronasara

Level 6

15,519 points

Nov 8, 2021 11:44 AM in response to Smedsta

I second the above answer. The solution is to try another browser. I like Firefox.

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Answer 2

Nov 8, 2021 4:34 AM in response to Smedsta

Chrome has been known for quite a long time as being a resource hog on Macs. Why? Only the coders at Google would under stand why.

As to your question about memory, when the computer runs out of available RAM space, it starts using virtual memory, i.e. reading and writing to slower disk based storage (virtual memory). Sometimes it will use up so much virtual memory to a point that the operating system determines that it needs to stop it as it sees as an issue to normal use of the disk.

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Enormous amount of Physical Memory usage for Chrome. Why?

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