Brave is using lot of memory

[Abhimanyu]

Description of the issue:

Brave is using a lot of memory.

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.

Open 10-15 tabs and use for sometime.

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):

Expected result:

Reproduces how often:

Daily - Issue started recently.

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):

Mac OS - 26.2 (25C56)
Brave - 1.85.117

Additional Information:

I have only Brave, Finder, and Activity Monitor open currently, and the memory usage is 22GB out of 24GB.
The system is very slow when opening other applications.

[289wk]

@Abhimanyu

Extremely high RAM usage (~12 GB for ~15 tabs) and Memory Saver “strict” mode not working

Are they on equal footing? What I mean is, are you using the same exact extensions and extension settings? Ad Blocking? Same or similar content? About the same length of time they have been open? The higher memory would indicate that there are things being loaded and used on the screen. I’m not sure if it might be tracking scripts that Shields is blocking or if it could be something else. Whatever is going on, it’s active. And since it’s active, it wouldn’t be hibernated. I’d be curious if yo…

Insane memory and energy consumption

@Ugle the key point here is understanding what’s actually running and whether your expectations match how Chromium-based browsers are designed. Chromium browsers, including Brave, run every tab and extension as a separate process. Each tab is its own process, and the same goes for every extension and many internal browser tasks. This design improves stability and security, but it can lead to higher memory and CPU usage on the surface. There’s a common principle in computing that unused RAM is …

How much memory does a 'new window' in Brave consume?

Negative. Mileage varies from device to device, not to mention based on what a person’s settings may be. But I could go ahead and give you an AI answer: The expected difference in RAM usage between opening a new tab and a new window in Brave is small but measurable. Here’s an estimate based on typical browser behavior: New Tab: Typically adds around 2-5 MB of RAM, depending on browser optimizations and extensions. Tabs share the same process within a window, so resources like the UI and co…

And: ‘CPU and memory usage - #3 by MasterLink’

Go to Settings > System:

Make sure that’s on.

[MasterLink]

By chance, just how many extensions do you have installed? It does appear that you do have an impossible amount of renderers for even 10-15 tabs open.

Normally I’d explain to people they aren’t understanding memory usage correctly, but in your case, you do have a lot of renderers, seemingly pages? (Based on two screenshots and how much the Activity Monitor scrolled, and more unique PID’s).

Also, if you have extensions, what extensions are installed? Something is consuming renderer threads, at a abnormally large quantity.

Brave actually consuming 22GB is a bit abnormal as well, contrary to again, my previous comments that many users misunderstand memory usage. Chromium usually is actually far more efficient than this, so I tested on my side and opened 15 tabs, and only saw 2GB of memory usage, not 22GB.

I’d very much look into extensions first, something is consuming an abnormally large amount of renderers. But also, you aren’t on a website that might be using the GPU for something heavy that needs such large amounts (like cryptomining for example, as that will consume multiple renderer threads for multithreading and RAM)?

[Saoiray]

@Abhimanyu A lot of what I was seeing is kind of normal in quantities of RAM being used until I got to the part where it’s straight up showing GB used. I’m not sure what’s trying to be rendered on those and what issues it might be facing. Unfortunately your screenshot made sure to exclude the tab or process related to it.

What you’re showing is the system level activity monitor which isn’t going to share as much. You should look at Brave’s task manager as it will detail every specific process in the browser being used and what it is that’s using so much.

You can pull up Brave’s Task Manager via Shift + Escape or you can go to the three dot menu → More Tools → Task Manager within Brave.

Doing that can show you like below, which lets you see what each extensions, specific tabs, etc is using the resources. And this is what will help point in the right direction of what’s happening.

[Abhimanyu]

These are the extensions I have.

Some were already disabled.

I will share more details about the tasks when the issue occurs again. It seems to be reproducible after long usage time.

P.S: I use Mac mini - The system is shutdown frequently (at least once in a day).

[fanboynz]

Try Brave Beta or Nightly, No extensions.

[Abhimanyu]

Update from Brave Task manager

[fanboynz]

Is HW Acceleration enabled?

[Abhimanyu]

Is this the option for Hardware acceleration?

It is disabled.

[Abhimanyu]

In have installed the Beta version, but I can’t switch to it completely as Brave is not syncing all my settings even after setting up the Sync.
So, I will be continuing with the stable version.

[Saoiray]

@Abhimanyu yes. Use graphics acceleration when available is the same as what used to be called hardware acceleration.

When this is enabled, it uses your GPU for much of the processes in order to handlme everything better and put less burden on your CPU.

When it is disabled, it will force your CPU to carry the full burden and will barely tap into your GPU for anything.

You should typically have this enabled so your computer performance is much better.

[Abhimanyu]

@Saoiray

nabled, it uses your GPU for much of the processes in order to handlme everything better and put less burden on your CPU.

When it is disabled, it will force your CPU to carry the full burden and will barely tap into your GPU for anything.

You should typically have this enabled so your computer performance is m

I disabled this option after I encountered this issue.

Still, I can’t understand how some site use 3-5 GBs of memory.

[Abhimanyu]

The issue happens in both cases.
With this option enabled and disabled.

[MasterLink]

So with GPU acceleration on, it would reduce the renderer threads, and some memory, but not the big amounts of GB’s we need reduced. My major issue is that Gmail alone consumes more RAM than a 32-bit PC can address (in your screenshot). A bit mind boggling even to me, so that’s absolutely a problem to me.

What’s also an issue is how much CPU each process is actually using. Now with GPU acceleration on, that usage should go down but likely not as much as we’d like. I think an extension is misbehaving at this point. (In my opinion).

Since we can see Gmail is consuming alone a lot of gigabytes, what happens if you use a Private Window and open Gmail? Does it continue to use an abnormal amount of RAM? I’m still thinking an extension is going south somewhere here.

[Abhimanyu]

@MasterLink

e Gmail is consuming alone a lot of gigabytes, what happens if you use a Private Window and open Gmail? Does it continue to use an abnormal amount of RAM? I’m still thinking an extension is going south somewhere here.

I have removed most of my extensions now.
These are the 7 I have now.
None of these are newly/recently installed.

I will share an update soon if the issue persists.