Microsoft: Edge's Sleeping Tabs feature saves an average of 39.1 MB of RAM per tab

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Microsoft Edge's Sleeping Tabs feature saves an average of 39.1 Megabytes of RAM for each tab that it puts to sleep according to Microsoft.



Sleeping Tabs was introduced in late 2020 by Microsoft in the company's Edge web browser. The feature puts tabs that have not been used for a period into sleep mode; the tab remains visible on the tab bar, but it is unloaded to free up RAM and save resources.

Tabs that are put into Sleep mode are faded in Edge by default to better distinguish them from active tabs. A click on a sleeping tab reloads its content automatically.

Company engineers improved the feature in Microsoft Edge 100 by putting pages to sleep that are sharing browsing instances; this puts 8% more tabs to sleep on average according to Microsoft.

Microsoft published information about the  effectiveness of the Sleeping Tabs feature on its Microsoft Edge Dev Twitter account today:
 

Use sleeping tabs to save resources? You aren’t alone! Over the past 28 days on Windows devices, we slept 6 billion tabs resulting in a savings of 273.7 Petabytes of RAM. That’s roughly 39.1 megabytes saved per tab

The company analyzed sleeping tabs data on Windows devices to find out how effective the feature is. Microsoft claims that the feature has put 6 billion tabs to sleep over the past 28 days, and that this has freed up more than 273.7 of RAM on those devices. The average saving is "roughly 39.1 Megabytes" according to Microsoft.  Some users may find it creepy that Microsoft has access to the information.

The feature is enabled by default and it puts tabs to sleep after 2 hours of inactivity. 6 billion tabs sounds like a lot, even more so if the 2 hour period of inactivity applies. More data, especially on the total number of open tabs in the monitored period would be helpful to get a better picture of the effectiveness of the feature.

Configure Sleep Mode in EdgeMicrosoft Edge users may open edge://settings/system in the browser's address bar to find out if Sleeping Tabs is turned on. Check "save resources with sleeping tabs" to find out about that. Options to toggle the fading of sleeping tabs, the amount of time a tab needs to be inactive before it is put to sleep, and a list of exceptions are also available on the page.

The default puts tabs that have been inactive for at least 2 hours into sleep mode. If you turn on efficiency mode, Edge takes over the setting and applies is based on various parameters such as available RAM.

Closing Words

Tabs that are put to sleep may affect other performance related metrics positively, including battery life on mobile devices. Freeing up RAM may not be beneficial on all systems, but it can improve the performance of systems with a low amount of RAM and systems that reach certain RAM use thresholds.

Most browsers support similar functionality, but Microsoft Edge's Sleeping Tabs feature came out of top in our analysis in 2021, as it is very convenient to use and effective at the same time.

Now You: do you use such a feature in your browsers?
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