how to open many tabs in chromium but unload/disable inactive/notCurrent ones, releasing memory and cpu?

Question

So I have 50 tabs opened on chromium, but that is using too much memory and some of the CPU.

How can I have all those concurrent researches I am doing opened but not clog my machine?

I think there should have a way that only the active tab is loaded in memory and running, and all the others should stay closed/unloaded from memory, until I want to look at them...

Any extension can do something like that?

EDIT: tabs outliner seems to do the trick as @Danny Beckett said, but I still wonder if the non active tabs could be unloaded (automatically); may be something like keep only the last newest 10 tabs opened/loaded, and auto-close the older ones; may be tabs outliner can have that feature in the future, just need find a proper way to ask its developer... any other tips?

EDIT: here a link to the idea: auto close old tabs, go there and upvote if you like it!

Spermaceti

Answer 1

The Tabs Outliner extension does exactly what you're asking.

Seamanlike

cool thx! I tested, I have to click on the big green "X" by the side of the homepage or the group in the tab-tree so the tabs stay there but are not active/running/usingMemoryAndCpu. I wonder if non active tabs could be automatically closed, leaving like only at most 10 opened tabs at same time, that would be great! I saw at its options and such idea is not there; I will try to ask the developer for it; thx! – Spermaceti

@AquariusPower They have a google groups for support here – Solomonsolon

@Solomonsolon thanks! I found there also this post for better support! dev support – Spermaceti

Answer 2

• Type command "chrome://kill" (or "chrome:kill") in the address URL bar (like a http:// URL but with chrome:// first) to individually release tabs from memory.

• Otherwise for a GUI, in the standard Chrome Task Manager (type Shift-Esc [or go to menu "More Tools..." then "Task Manager"]), then just "click-to-kill" the tabs you want to release from memory.

That language command is painful/difficult/violent/triggering but will not crash your computer or cause harm, that is the actual English command.

(I too use and love the Tabs Outliner suggested before, but still sometimes type the command.

Pro Tip: Make "chrome://kill" a convenient link in your Bookmark Bar.

Other benefits to the command version, are that if you reload the page, Chrome with chrome:kill still has it cached, so page position and form fields can be restored automatically. However with Tabs Outliner it wil not remember the reloaded page contents, there is not any cache.)

Fief

Answer 3

You can right click on Chrome title bar and choose "Task Manager"

Task Manager path

Then you can choose for which tab or window you want to end process which will essentially unload tabs and windows from the memory.

Task Manager screenshot

You can close everything except for the main Chrome process indicated by green arrow in the screenshot above. Ending this process would be the same as closing all Chrome instances altogether.

Armenta

Answer 4

This is now built into Chrome.

If you want manually unload tabs, you can do it from the special chrome://discards/ page.

The page lists all tabs and shows how recently they were used.

One can click the [Proactive Discard] link on the right hand column to unload the tab and release the resources it was using.

Camenae