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sudden high cpu usage with google chrome

Hello all,


since a few days my macbook pro uses an unusually high amount of its cpu for google chrome.

Spec wise i have a 2021 macbook pro 14" with the m1 max and 32GB of RAM.

Going into more detail, i always have like 30+ tabs open + running other apps in the background, which was never a problem and the macbook never broke a sweat. Then a few days back the fans suddenly went crazy, cranking the max rpm. I feel like i have tried everything. From closing tabs / chrome, to clearing, deleting extentions, even reinstalling chrome. Nothing has helped yet. With 4 open tabs i am sitting on a toasty 40% cpu usage.


Furthermore, i first discovered the same problem this on my Windows PC, dunno if that helps any.


MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Oct 29, 2022 6:00 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 2, 2022 11:23 AM

I turned off the Google Drive offline chrome extension, and the problem is resolved for me.


I hope his helps others!

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10 replies

Oct 29, 2022 6:36 PM in response to Piqûre

Yeah, there is no "bad page". Seems like it does not matter if i open a doc, sth on google or a youtube video. it all draws an ungodly amound of cpu power. safari and firefox seem to work fine tho. As stated, this also happened on my Windows PC, going even so far that even with chrome uninstalled an everything closed it was sitting on 100% CPU usage. But that is a whole different story.

Nov 21, 2022 3:30 PM in response to jakobherbst

This has been happening for me for the past week or so as well (started early November, 2022).


It only happens to google.com pages (sheets, docs, gmail, and slides). I have lots of other tabs from other domains, but only these google pages consume 100% CPU indefinitely.


When I visit the tab that is consuming 100% CPU (according to Chrome's task manager), it is a solid white page. If I refresh the page, a spinner appears in the tab, but after waiting several minutes nothing happens.


I would be curious to know if this is a google web property problem only.

Nov 22, 2022 6:58 PM in response to jakobherbst

You should remove ANY third-party software that claims to clean your Mac.I see two in your AM list: CleanMyMac and CleanShot.


The macOS has elegantly and cat-like cleaned itself for over 20 years. Any third party cleaning scams only interfere with the excellent self-maintenance routines you paid Apple to build into the OS.


Those apps may not use a lot of resources themselves but there have been plenty of times when they cause other apps to act out. I've seen data-supported case here of slow hard drives that sped up with the cleaning Apps were removed.



Nov 22, 2022 6:45 PM in response to djsmith42

Make sure to reboot the computer. In fact, when rebooting, make sure to uncheck the option to "Reopen Windows" so that all apps are closed so that they need to be relaunched at login. This helps to clear out temp & cache files which can clear up issues with both macOS and specific apps.


Are you running any anti-virus apps, cleaning/optimizer apps, or third party security software? These types of apps are not needed on a Mac and usually cause more problems than they solve plus they impact system performance. If you have any of these types of apps installed, then uninstall them by following the developer's instructions to see if that resolves your problem.


Are you using any browser plugins or extensions? Disable them in case one of them is causing a problem.


You can try booting into Safe Mode to see if that helps as this prevents third party software from automatically launching during boot & login. You may also want to try using another macOS user account to see if the same thing happens. If using another macOS user account does not have the problem, then their is something in the main macOS user account causing the problem.


I believe it is also possible to launch Chrome using a new profile by using the command line to launch Chrome. Using a new Chrome profile won't have any of your custom settings or save profiles/bookmarks, etc. Sometimes a Chromium browser profile can become corrupted. I'm not sure of the command option for Chrome...I'm sure it can be searched.


With Vivaldi I routinely clear out the browsing data, usually just the cache & application cache (Vivaldi has a special menu option for this) which helps for a while. Other times I must also delete the data for "Storage" which does a better job, but it also deletes cookies or other settings related to websites. This is a better option as I still retain most of my browser settings & customizations compared to using a new profile. Not sure where Chrome has this option, but here is a screenshot from Vivaldi:



Nov 21, 2022 3:54 PM in response to jakobherbst

Chromium based browsers are always resource hogs and the severity can come & go with each update to the Chromium browser engine.


With 30+ tabs open, it is definitely not unusual for any browser to get high CPU utilization. Web pages are full of code that runs on the system and some of that code (usually for the ads & tracking) just eats away at resources. It just may be that one or more webpages has picked up a advertisement/tracker that is going crazy.


I know in Vivaldi (a Chromium based browser) there is a "Task Manager" that allows me to see the utilization which can clearly tell me which Window & tab is consuming the CPU cycles. I don't know if Google Chrome has a Task Manager or where it may be located (for Vivaldi it is an option on the browser's "Tools" menu).

sudden high cpu usage with google chrome

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