Sleeping tabs FAQ

[Eleanor_Huynh]

What is sleeping tabs?

To improve memory and CPU utilization of the browser, we've developed a feature called sleeping tabs.

To free up resources for active tabs, new tabs, and other applications on your device, sleeping tabs in Microsoft Edge makes background tabs “go to sleep” after 2 hours of inactivity. You can adjust the time interval in Settings by going to edge://settings/system. Sleeping tabs will fade to indicate 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.

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

What about the sites I never want to sleep?

To keep you in your flow, we have built in heuristics to detect tabs doing important activity in the background and prevent these tabs from sleeping. You can also add sites you never want to sleep to a block list in Settings by going to edge://settings/system.

What activities prevent a site from going to sleep?

To help you stay on task and limit potential compatibility issues, the following activities prevent sites from going to sleep:

• The page is currently visible (active tab)
• The page is currently holding a Web Lock or an IndexedDB transaction
• The page is sharing its BrowsingInstance with another page
• The page is your company’s internal (intranet) site
• The page is currently being inspected by DevTools
• The page is currently playing audio
• The page is currently capturing a window or screen
• The page is currently capturing user media (webcam, microphone, etc)
• The page is currently being mirrored (casting, etc)
• The page is on the user’s block list in Settings
• The page is currently using WebUSB
  

We will continue to evolve this list as needed.

How does the sleeping tabs technology work?

Sleeping tabs builds upon the core of Chromium’s “freezing” technology. Freezing pauses a tab’s script timers, minimizing CPU usage and frees up the operating system to reuse the memory for other open tabs, new tabs, or system applications.

What is the difference between a sleeping tab and a discarded tab?

For a sleeping tab, the page is simply "paused", allowing Microsoft Edge to release some system resources. Specifically, sleeping minimizes the CPU usage to the bare minimum which helps reduce the battery consumption as well as release some of the memory.  The advantage of sleeping a tab is that going back to it again is very fast and imperceptible.

A tab can also be discarded. When a tab is discarded, the content of the page is completely thrown away, allowing all of the resources (CPU, memory) to be released. The downside here is that the page needs to be fully reloaded when going back to that tab.

What sleeping tabs group policies will enterprises get?

We offer group policies to:

• Enable and disable the feature all-up
• Manage the time before an inactive tab goes to sleep
• Manage which sites should be blocked from going to sleep

These can be both mandatory or recommended group policies. If it’s a recommended group policy, IT admins will have the ability to set the default behavior that their users can change later, if they wish.

Why do others see the feature, but I do not?

We're in the process of deploying this feature, so it may be a little while before you see it in your respective channel and build. 

Can I turn off sleeping tabs?

Yes, you can do this by toggling off in Settings under edge://settings/system.

Can I change the amount of time before a tab goes to sleep?

Yes, you can do this by changing the time interval in Settings under edge://settings/system.

How do I send feedback?

It’s possible some sites might not work as expected after they go to sleep. We’ve built heuristics to detect these scenarios and prevent those tabs from sleeping to keep you in your flow. We’re eager to get your feedback on sleeping tabs. If you experience a tab that doesn’t wake up as you expected, please refresh the page and let us know by pressing Alt+Shift+I on a Windows device or going to Settings and more … > Help and feedback > Send feedback.

You can also discuss your experience here on the Microsoft Edge Insider forums and Twitter, or send us your feedback through the browser!

- The Microsoft Edge Product Team

[#2]

I cannot get the sleeping tab function to work even though the feature is enabled in my system's settings

@Eleanor_Huynh 

[#3]

Which Build/channel are you on?

[#4]

As of Edge Stable 88.0.705.56, we're not seeing Sleeping Tabs in settings (edge://settings/system) unless enabled via the Experimental Flags.

PS- We do have a couple GPOs enabled, but clearing them didn't change the situation. 

[#5]

@Eleanor_Huynh

Sleeping Tabs Feature is not working in my browser. I turned on the feature, but it's not working.

[#6]

@jayanth_jaga 

---

@jayanth_jaga wrote:

@Eleanor_Huynh

Sleeping Tabs Feature is not working in my browser. I turned on the feature, but it's not working.

---

What did you turn on exactly and what is your browser version and channel? which OS ?

what is the timer set to?

[#7]

@EricOfFcoa 

Is no one else missing Sleeping Tabs as of Edge 88.0.705.56? For example: 

[#8]

@HotCakeX

I switched on Sleeping tabs feature in my pc, and the timer is set to 5 minutes. But it's not working. I'm using Edge beta version 88.0.705.56 in my Windows PC. Hope this helps.

[#9]

@EricOfFcoa

You need to enable sleeping tabs feature in edge://flags,then only it will show the feature for you.

[#10]

@jayanth_jaga 

Thanks for the reply. I was under the impression from the new GPOs and the Release Notes for Edge 88 Stable that Sleeping Tabs was formally introduced in v88, and thus out of the Experimental feature stage. That's not the case? 

[#11]

@EricOfFcoa

enable the feature and see how it works

[#12]

@EricOfFcoa 

---

@EricOfFcoa wrote:

@jayanth_jaga 

Thanks for the reply. I was under the impression from the new GPOs and the Release Notes for Edge 88 Stable that Sleeping Tabs was formally introduced in v88, and thus out of the Experimental feature stage. That's not the case? 

---

Please use the feedback button on Edge or here

to tell them that you don't have sleeping tabs feature, even though it's mentioned in the official change log

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-relnote-stable-channel

this is happening as the result of running experiments in Edge stable.

other users are reporting to have other features missing, such as password monitor.

[#13]

@HotCakeX 
According to  the roadmap  posted by @Eleanor_Huynh (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=76265), the Sleeping Tabs feature has only been released to the beta channel. It appears that the information in the release notes may have been mixed up?

[#14]

Beta channel and Stable channel now have the same exact versions.
Beta will soon go to ver.89.
I believe the change log in Microsoft docs is correct.

proof is that you don't have sleeping tabs in Edge stable but I do have it on my Edge stable, without turning on any flags.
I sent feedback about it few days ago and they replied:

"Hi There,

Thank you for reporting this. We recently modified our rollout so this can be avoided. If you keep seeing this issue, please respond to this and I will help file a bug.

Thanks for your communication, as always!
"

I did respond back mentioning password monitor and sleeping tabs, gonna wait for another reply.

[#15]

@HotCakeXThank you. This surprising change to the originally communicated schedule is very troubling news. It means customers will now have to take immediate meassures to disable Sleeping Tabs in order to avoid application compatibility issues instead of being able to do this within the v89 timeframe.

[#16]

@michaelketting 

Yw, I agree, 3 insider channels are available already for all kinds of testing, the 4th channel is supposed to be free of experiments.

but businesses and enterprises have nothing to worry about. they added this policy over a year ago

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployEdge/microsoft-edge-policies#experimentationandconfigurations...

Spoiler

ExperimentationAndConfigurationServiceControl

Control communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service Supported versions:

• On Windows and macOS since 77 or later

Description

In Microsoft Edge, the Experimentation and Configuration Service is used to deploy Experimentation and Configuration payload.

Experimentation payload consists of a list of early in development features that Microsoft is enabling for testing and feedback.

Configuration payload consists of a list of settings that Microsoft wants to deploy to Microsoft Edge to optimize user experience. For example, configuration payload may specify how often Microsoft Edge sends requests to the Experimentation and Configuration Service to retrieve the newest payload.

Additionaly, configuration payload may also contain a list of actions to take on certain domains for compatibility reasons. For example, the browser may override the User Agent string on a website if that website is broken due to the new User Agent string on Microsoft Edge. Each of these actions is intended to be temporary while Microsoft tries to resolve the issue with the site owner.

If you set this policy to 'FullMode', the full payload is downloaded from the Experimentation and Configuration Service. This includes both the experimentation and configuration payloads.

If you set this policy to 'ConfigurationsOnlyMode', only the configuration payload is delivered.

If you set this policy to 'RestrictedMode', the communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service is stopped completely.

If you don't configure this policy, on a managed device on Stable and Beta channels the behavior is the same as the 'ConfigurationsOnlyMode'.

If you don't configure this policy, on an unmanaged device the behavior is the same as the 'FullMode'.

Policy options mapping:

• FullMode (2) = Retrieve configurations and experiments

• ConfigurationsOnlyMode (1) = Retrieve configurations only

• RestrictedMode (0) = Disable communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service

Use the preceding information when configuring this policy.

Supported features:

• Can be mandatory: Yes
• Can be recommended: No
• Dynamic Policy Refresh: Yes

Data Type:

• Integer

that being said, if anyone has problem with this, please do voice your concerns through feedback button on Edge or the online form
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/support

[#17]

FWIW, the release notes seem to suggest that Sleeping Tabs should be disabled by default in 88: "We are planning to have the sleeping tabs feature enabled by default with Microsoft Edge version 89."

[#18]

@EricOfFcoathank you for pointing this out. I completely missed this last part when checking out the release notes.

[#19]

Okay, so looking closer at the release notes and your post on the "Experimentation and Configuration Service" GPO, may explain why we're not seeing Sleeping Tabs.

We have the "Experimentation and Configuration Service" set to 0 (RestrictedMode), and the release notes state that the "feature is limited to a randomly selected group of users who have enabled experimentation." I glazed over that earlier, and I honestly didn't recall there was an "experimentation" policy, but it makes sense I wouldn't want that enabled in the Enterprise.

I'm just surprised that all indications I'd found online prior to now had seemed to indicate this was out of beta for all. It sounds like perhaps like consumers all have the feature, but enterprise are being phased in???

[#20]

Probably yes,
but good that you already had that policy in place

[#21]

For anyone using Great suspender extension, it's been identified to have malware and is currently blocked by Chrome web store
more info:
https://www.windowscentral.com/great-suspender-gets-pulled-chrome-web-store