Introducing Sleeping Tabs Experiment: Improving Memory Usage in Microsoft Edge

[Eleanor_Huynh]

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.

gif of several tabs open, with one fading to sleep, and 7 other tabs also fading

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

[#2]

@Eleanor_Huynh 

It was amazing ! 

But I suggest these things:

- option to add site to whitelist from the same page or right click on tab. Now only could add whitelist site in edge://settings/system

- set option to don't or do suspend (on/off) to sound/video playing tabs

- quick option to change suspend time, or disable it quickly

best regards !! 

[#3]

This is true but until they finally give us the option to hide/remove idem's we don't
use this will be an issue with ALL right click issues especially having 2 Bing search types sidebar and reg search in a new tab its bad enough that it can't be customized for your default search engine but if they won't give us the option to do that at least give us the option to remove it complexly if we don't want it or use it ;)

[#4]

If you don't want to use sleeping tabs then turn it off.
edge://settings/system

[#5]

Any info or word on what happened to the selection of "Immediately" for putting tabs to sleep? It has been gone for some time now and not one word on if it is permanently gone, or just being adjusted or going to be added to the current selections list....... Immediately worked extremely well for me and I am not sure why there is no response as to what happen to the choice. The flags are no longer in the flags area so it is not a choice one can make to use.

Is there anyone else that used the flag and or choice "Immediately" and find it gone for them as well?

Dennis5mile

[#6]

I have a question about sleeping tabs: When I type 'sleep' into the search box on the about:flags page, it says, "no matching experiments." Also, when searching using 'enable', as soon as I type the 's' for 'sleep' after enable, it comes up with the same "no matching experiments" message. However, in the browser settings, the option is there and it does work. Is this normal? The reason I ask is that I'm not able to even test the immediate sleep feature. On the release version I am able to find the enable options in it's flags. Is it possible that I only have the sleeping tabs here in the Beta version because of sync? I should also note that the flags are also not accessible in Canary and Dev versions yet the sleeping tabs option is functional. Anyway, with all that said, LOVE the feature and agree with others that anything much over 2-5 minutes doesn't seem useful.

[#7]

As I've stated several times in this thread including the post just before yours. It has been removed and there is no word on if it will be added to the list of options, or placed back into the flags area.

We are still waiting for a reply to this question.

Dennis5mile

[#8]

This post has got 213 000 views. I guess microsoft dont read it. All answers made here are posted by people not working on this project so posting here is pointless if you someone wants to report bugs and suggestions and get answers from Microsoft.

[#9]

@sungtroll 

Spoiler

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@sungtroll wrote:
This post has got 213 000 views. I guess microsoft dont read it. All answers made here are posted by people not working on this project so posting here is pointless if you someone wants to report bugs and suggestions and get answers from Microsoft.

---

Can't say they don't read it, they're not gonna post every time in the comments that "ok we read this".

also the the number of views doesn't mean unique visitors. whenever you refresh the page, it counts as a view.

[#10]

@Eleanor_Huynh @whichever developer, I should be @ing 
I want to contribute to this feature by saying Microsoft should go 1 step further with this feature by allowing users to freeze their tabs when needed by simply right-clicking the tab and selecting "Put this tab to sleep."
Some sites overtime auto redirect to ad sites multiple times or sit and accumulate pop-ups.
A "Put this tab to sleep" feature will save your sanity when you return to the site as per your need.
This will be a blessing for those who wish to retain their annoying tabs without wanting to scroll through 'recently closed.'
Many people work all day on the computer and don't use extensions to solve this and other related issues due to the security risk. For them, this may become the primary reason they would choose Microsoft Edge over Chrome.

PS: Microsoft edge would be godly if a feature to put extensions to sleep is introduced. Not everyone is comfortable having extensions use power and permissions when not required.

[#11]

@Eleanor_Huynh 

Ok, I know broken record here, but;

Sleeping Tabs;
Ok, so this new "Optimize Performance mode" is all well and good, but I would still love the have "Immediately" as a choice. I open lots of tabs all at once every day, and having to wait even 5 minutes can be a drag. Please, I don't know what it will hurt, or why this seems to be a problem but can you add "immediately" as a choice in your selections list of times?

 

Thanks
Dennis5mile

[#12]

Please add a context menu option to each tab to a) manually put that tab to sleep (regardless of exceptions), or b) manually put all other tabs in the window to sleep, except those with exceptions in the settings.

[#13]

I personally don't like the feature. I would like to reduce consumption, that's a wonderful thing because I usually have a lot of tabs open. But when I open a tab again. It seems to reload. Not sure whether it has to do with this feature or not but I assume.

This is very annoying if you are forced to work with online programs, e.g. writing documentation, etc. Then you must move to another tab, or program to test, verifiy, read something and want to go back to where you left off. But suddenly the page reloads, deleting your last couple of sentences.

And no, it's not that I should have saved, it is a paragraph, and honestly, who saves after each sentence they write?!

Would be nice if the feature just opened the last state the page had, without reload. If I want to reload, I click reload. But don't force the tab to do it. If this is part of the feature, well then I assume, I have do deactivate it because i don't like it, or maybe the exceptions are sufficient.

[#14]

Totally agree. But i am afraid it seems that microsoft dont read this blog and it is a totally waste to say it here. I am really frustrated about microsoft have posted this blog and have people respond but then microsoft dont care to read it and do any of the improvements recommended by us. It is easy to understand it takes 20 year to improve something at microsoft.

[#15]

@simonschoenig 

Well Simon seems like you r quick to speak without introspecting.

The site you wish to exclude from going to sleep can be added in settings. Just search 'sleeping' and you will find what i mean. 

sleeping tab in it self is meant to reload as when it is put to sleep the site data is removed from your RAM and only reloading can let you open the site. If you want to know why this happens, it is because the promised "performance improvement" cannot happen without reducing the load of the RAM.

Next time properly read the article you are commenting on.

[#16]

@simonschoenig let's see if I understand you correctly: When you click on the  tab up in the toolbar, it automatically re-loads the tab? If that is what you are saying, I agree, that is somewhat annoying. The tab suspender for FF does not re-load the tab when you click on it up in the toolbar, but it  waits until you actually click somewhere on the page itself. That same feature would be nice for Edge sleeping tabs.