Forum Discussion
MicrosoftIntroducing Sleeping Tabs Experiment: Improving Memory Usage in Microsoft Edge
Note: We are in the process of deploying this feature, so it may be a little while before you see it in your respective channel and build.
To improve memory and CPU utilization of the browser, we've developed a feature called sleeping tabs.
Early internal testing of devices with sleeping tabs has shown a median memory usage reduction of 26% for Microsoft Edge. Our internal testing has also shown that a normal background tab uses 29% more CPU for Microsoft Edge than a sleeping tab. These resource savings should result in excellent battery savings. Although individual device performance varies depending on configuration and usage, we expect the decrease in resource and battery usage to create a better browsing experience for users.
Median memory usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Average CPU usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Sleeping tabs builds upon the core of Chromium’s “freezing” technology. Freezing pauses a tab’s script timers to minimize resource usage. A sleeping tab resumes automatically when clicked, which is different than discarded tabs, which require the page to fully be reloaded.
We built upon the freezing technology to create sleeping tabs. This feature allows inactive background tabs to “go to sleep,” releasing system resources after a set amount of time. These resources include both memory and CPU and can be used for new or existing tabs or other applications running on your device.
By default, we’ve set tabs to go to sleep after two hours of inactivity. If two hours isn’t right for you, you can choose a different time interval in edge://settings/system. Tabs that are asleep will fade to let you know they’ve released resources. To resume a sleeping tab, click on it like a normal tab. The tab will un-fade and your content will be there immediately. You can also add sites you never want to sleep to a block list in Settings.
With this technology, it is possible that some sites may not work as expected after they go to sleep. We have built heuristics to detect these scenarios and prevent those tabs from sleeping to keep you in your flow. We are eager to get your feedback on sleeping tabs. If you experience a compat issue, please refresh the page and let us know through Microsoft Edge by pressing Shift+Alt+I on a Windows device or going to Settings and more … > Help and feedback > Send feedback.
Sleeping tabs will be coming soon to Canary and Dev Channels [87.0.649.0]. If you see the sleeping tabs feature while browsing, please join us here on the Microsoft Edge Insider forums or Twitter to discuss your experience, or send us your feedback through the browser! If you have any questions, see our FAQ or reach out to us. We hope you enjoy this exciting new feature and look forward to hearing from you!
- The Microsoft Edge Product Team
214 Replies
The sleeping tabs have been driving me crazy the last months. I use a program for power control of electricity in my home to warn me of over-usage that is billed yearly from the electricity company. Every kWh electricity used in one hour adds 100 usd to my bill so i really need my program to work all the time! I had tried everything in the Edge settings to disable sleeping tabs but it never solved the horrible problem. The sleeping tabs have already added 300 usd to my electicity fee!
Today i see there is now a possibility to control the sleeping tabs and to add pages to never sleep. I see the example url *.domain.com but my program runs in localhost http://localhost:1880/ui/#!/1?socketid=ELP63alysfIYYMAcAABM#%2F0. So i tried to add it to the exeption list and will see if it now til work reliable if i decide to use another tab for browsing so i dont need to use the computer only for my program but for other browsing at the same time without "killing" my warnings i need so much.
My program is made in Node-Red and Node-Red runs locally in my computer. The display is Web user interface in Node-red and Microsoft Edge is the browser displaying the control panel and plays voice warning messages. So Edge must never ever go to sleep when my program is running! Edge even put my important electricity control panel page to sleep when running as Edge app!
Video of the working program at: https://youtu.be/GQTypW9Wxrg
Deleted
The setting edge://flags/#automatic-tab-discarding is missing from both edge standard and beta.
- Spoiler
sungtroll wrote:The sleeping tabs have been driving me crazy the last months. I use a program for power control of electricity in my home to warn me of over-usage that is billed yearly from the electricity company. Every kWh electricity used in one hour adds 100 usd to my bill so i really need my program to work all the time! I had tried everything in the Edge settings to disable sleeping tabs but it never solved the horrible problem. The sleeping tabs have already added 300 usd to my electicity fee!
Today i see there is now a possibility to control the sleeping tabs and to add pages to never sleep. I see the example url *.domain.com but my program runs in localhost http://localhost:1880/ui/#!/1?socketid=ELP63alysfIYYMAcAABM#%2F0. So i tried to add it to the exeption list and will see if it now til work reliable if i decide to use another tab for browsing so i dont need to use the computer only for my program but for other browsing at the same time without "killing" my warnings i need so much.
My program is made in Node-Red and Node-Red runs locally in my computer. The display is Web user interface in Node-red and Microsoft Edge is the browser displaying the control panel and plays voice warning messages. So Edge must never ever go to sleep when my program is running! Edge even put my important electricity control panel page to sleep when running as Edge app!
Video of the working program at: https://youtu.be/GQTypW9Wxrg
You just saw that exception list for sleeping tabs, but it has been Always there, since the beginning.
edge://settings/system
all you had to do is to go to settings and search for sleeping tabs. all of that could be easily prevented.
Add this to the list: "Never put these sites to sleep"
[*.]localhostNo, it has not always been there. This is snapshot from today from Edge Versjon 87.0.664.66 (Offisiell build) (64-biters). I had the same problem with Edge beta and ever with chrome. The old Internet explorer worked always but with rendering problems.
Eleanor_Huynh Please have an option to not use it. I don't know a lot about using Windows 10 so please leave this off of my computer.
RichardLongRichard_Lo wrote:Eleanor_Huynh Please have an option to not use it. I don't know a lot about using Windows 10 so please leave this off of my computer.
Hi,
there is nothing to worry about, all you have to do is go to the settings, and click/tap on this toggle button, that's it.
insiders and lots of others have tested this feature for months to make it ready for broader rollout.
and by default, the time out is set to 2 Hours, which is pretty long time, I intentionally set it to 5 minutes as you can see in the screenshot.
HotCakeX Is it possible to have a custom input for the timeout?
Say I want to make it sleep in a couple of seconds, or maybe just add some more dropdown options for it.
I know that the flag for immediate timeout is available, but why don't just make it easier for the user and add some more options right on the settings.
The worst update yetEleanor_Huynh
After a few days after the update I have lost data, by rebooting the computer because of freezing up. It took nearly 5 min. to get the web sits back in service. Please take it back so my system can function normally again
JChance wrote:The worst update yet
After a few days after the update I have lost data, by rebooting the computer because of freezing up. It took nearly 5 min. to get the web sits back in service. Please take it back so my system can function normally again
Hi,
which website was it? possible to mention it so others can test it too?
you can also submit a feedback right from the browser itself, it will also submit additional diagnostic data that can help identify and fix the problem.
press Edge's (...) menu => Help and feedback => Send feedback
thank you
Eleanor_Huynh, how are Sleeping Tabs related to the pre-sleeping tabs GPO: "Allow freezing of background tabs"? Are they interdependent?
Eleanor_Huynh I had already turned it on using edge://flags and selected for immediate sleeping. Now as this feature permanently rolled out for Edge, you can't even select the time out for the same. Even changing it again from edge://flags didn't affect at all. WTH!
vivik wrote:Eleanor_Huynh I had already turned it on using edge://flags and selected for immediate sleeping. Now as this feature permanently rolled out for Edge, you can't even select the time out for the same. Even changing it again from edge://flags didn't affect at all. WTH!
I'm checking and the flag is still available in Edge stable version 88.0.705.63
so just go to the flags and either set this to default or disable it:
edge://flags/#edge-sleeping-tabs-immediate-timeout
Me gusta como trabajan las sleeping tabs, solo quiero comentar que mientras navego y trabajo en Edge Chromium todo va bien, el problema lo tengo es cuando lo cierro el navegador ...
Al cerrar Microsoft Edge Chromium:
"Todo se pone lento para abrir el menú de inicio y el explorador de archivos... etc"
Obs: inclusive cuando voy a apagar el equipo tengo por costumbre cerrar con Alt+F4; hasta eso tarda muchísimo en mostrar la ventana para apagar el equipo.
I've been using this for a few days and I gotta say, it's absolutely wonderful. Significantly lower CPU usage, it reminds me to close tabs I'm really not using or just to "get" to them, cooler running laptop, and hopefully it encourages websites to stop running timers all the time.
I'd love to read a deep-dive on what was added to Chromium's freeze function to create Edge's sleep function: what are the major differences?
I feel like they should copy some setting from "the great suspender" extension. for example the ability to right click the page and put it in the sleep mode instantly or black-list the domain from sleeping etc.. , . Sadly, The extension got removed from the browser. so I cannot show you the options.
But over all Amazing job I love it!
