Chrome uses a separate process for every tab. Open 30 tabs, and you have 30+ processes competing for your RAM. I measured my Chrome instance last week: 4.2 GB with 34 tabs, three of which I had not looked at in days.
Here is what actually works to fix this, ordered from simplest to most effective.
Check which tabs are eating your memory
Press Shift+Esc inside Chrome. This opens Chrome's built-in Task Manager. You will see every tab, extension, and subprocess with its memory footprint. Sort by Memory to find the worst offenders. I found a single Google Sheets tab using 890 MB.
Enable Chrome Memory Saver
Chrome 110+ includes a built-in memory conservation feature. Navigate to chrome://settings/performance and enable Memory Saver. Chrome will automatically free memory from tabs you have not used recently. When you click back to a suspended tab, it reloads.
The limitation: it does not give you control over timing or whitelisting. Sites you need to keep alive (email, chat, music) get suspended too.
Audit your extensions
Every extension runs in its own process. Open chrome://extensions and count yours. If you have more than 10, you are likely burning 200-500 MB on extensions alone. Disable anything you do not use weekly.
Use tab groups to stay organized
Right-click a tab and select "Add tab to new group." Name it, color-code it, and collapse it when you are not using those tabs. Collapsed groups still consume memory, but they help you identify which tabs to close.
Automate tab suspension
I built Tab Suspender Pro to solve this for myself. It automatically suspends tabs after a configurable timer, skips tabs playing audio or with unsaved forms, and lets you whitelist sites. It has 1,305 users and a 4.92 star rating on the Chrome Web Store.
The full guide with 7 specific fixes, before-and-after memory measurements, and Chrome flags you should enable is at zovo.one/articles/how-to-reduce-chrome-memory-usage.
I write free developer tools and guides at zovo.one.
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