I built a Chrome extension that shows which tab is eating your RAM (and frees it in one click)

Source: Dev.to

The problem I kept running into

I’m a chronic tab hoarder. At any given time I’ve got 40–80 tabs open across two windows. Chrome’s built-in Memory Saver is aggressive in the wrong ways — it hibernates tabs I’m actively referencing. And the built-in task manager is a two-step detour that still doesn’t tell me which tabs I should actually close. So I built Tab Memory Manager. Per-tab memory estimates — A live MB count next to every open tab. Sorted by memory usage by default. There’s a live total on the toolbar icon so you always know what Chrome is consuming right now. Smart suggestions — The extension flags your biggest, stalest tabs: ones that are idle the longest and consuming the most. It never suggests your active tab, pinned tabs, tabs playing audio, or domains you’ve whitelisted. Hibernate, don’t close — This was the core design decision. Hibernating frees the memory but keeps the tab alive in your strip — it reloads when you click it. Much safer than closing, especially mid-research. Bulk cleanup — Select multiple tabs or hit Apply on the suggestions panel. See the total memory you’ll reclaim before you commit. Undo list — Closed something by mistake? There’s a “Recently cleaned” panel. One click to restore. Tab grouping — Groups all your open tabs by domain into color-coded Chrome tab groups, instantly. Chrome’s stable extension API doesn’t expose exact per-tab memory. The chrome.processes API that does exists only on Dev and Canary builds — not the Chrome that 99% of people use. So Tab Memory Manager uses calibrated estimates based on tab state, domain patterns, and known Chrome process overhead. These are clearly labeled “est.” in the UI. If you’re on Dev or Canary, you can switch on real per-tab memory in settings. The warning Chrome shows about “processes requires dev channel” is a Chrome-generated note about that optional API — the extension works completely normally without it. It’s not a bug. No accounts. No servers. No analytics. No network requests at all (except to load the extension itself). Your tab data never leaves your browser. This was a hard constraint from the start — I didn’t want to build a tool that phones home with your browsing habits in exchange for memory stats. Chrome’s memory API situation is messier than I expected. There’s no clean “give me memory per tab” call on stable Chrome. The estimates approach took real calibration work.

Hibernation UX is tricky. Users expect the tab to stay exactly where it was. Making that feel seamless (instant reload on click, right scroll position, no flash) took more edge-case handling than the core feature.

“No frameworks” was the right call here. The extension opens in under 100 ms. That matters when you’re in the middle of a task and just want to quickly free some memory.

Dark mode should be automatic, not optional. Used CSS variables throughout so dark/light adapts to the user’s system preference without any user-facing toggle.

Try it

It’s free on the Chrome Web Store. I’d genuinely love feedback — especially from people who’ve tried other tab suspenders and found them lacking. Link: What would make this more useful for your workflow?