How to Use Sleeping Tabs in Microsoft Edge to Improve Performance

Feb. 23, 2021

In September last year,Microsoft started testing a ‘sleeping tabs’ featureto help users preserve memory and CPU usage while using Edge browser. While the feature was initially hidden behind aMicrosoft Edge feature flag, Edge’s development team has since managed to bring the feature to the stable version of the browser. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how you can use the feature in Edge browser from your PC.

Use Sleeping Tabs in Edge

According to Microsoft,sleeping tabs reduces memory usage by 32 percent. In addition, the feature also results in37 percent less CPU usage. Here’s the average memory usage from Edge Canary and Dev channels across almost 40,000 devices:Image: Microsoft

For those wondering about the CPU usage, here’s what the company found while experimenting with the feature across almost 40,000 devices:Image: Microsoft

When tabs are put to the sleep state, they fade. For example, the first four tabs in the image below are sleeping tabs, while the tabs after that are active.By default, Edge puts inactive tabs to sleep after 2 hours. You can change the sleep trigger duration from Settings.

In case the sleeping tabs feature is not enabled by default on your machine, you can manually enable it from Settings. To open Settings, click on the horizontal three dots menu at the top right corner, and choose ‘Settings’. Once you’re on the Settings page,switch to the ‘System’ tabandflip the ‘Save resources with sleeping tabs’ toggle.

If you’re not a huge fan of the default 2 hours duration to trigger sleeping tabs, you can customize it. The available durations are 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 6 hours, and 12 hours. You can change this using the ‘Put inactive tabs to sleep after the specified amount of time’ option.

Moreover, in case sleeping tabs feature breaks any of your workflows, you canwhitelist specific websites.Click on the ‘Add’ button next to ‘Never put these sites to sleep’and add the URL of these sites.

If you want to disable sleeping tabs, all you have to do isdisable the ‘Save resources with sleeping tabs’ togglefrom Settings -> System. This way, Edge will no longer put your tabs to sleep.

So, that’s how you can use sleeping tabs in Microsoft Edge. In my opinion, sleeping tabs will be useful especially for users with limited hardware resources. If you’re an Edge user, you might also like our coverage onusing kids mode,disabling URL copy/paste,getting news and weather widget, andremoving Edge tabs from Alt+Tab switcher.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.