[Tip] Add Secret “Purge Memory” Button in Google Chrome Task Manager
There is no doubt that Google Chrome is the youngest but one of the most popular and widely used web browsers. There are many people who have switched from popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer to Google Chrome.
Google Chrome comes with a clean and very minimal UI. It also comes with many hidden features and one of such hidden feature is purging memory.
If you are a Google Chrome user, you might be aware of its Task Manager component which allows you to end task of running tabs, etc similar to Windows Task Manager.
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But did you know that you can add a hidden secret “Purge memory” button to Chrome’s Task Manager. This new button allows you to free some memory using a single click. You don’t even need to close the browser.
If you want to enable this secret button, check out following simple steps:
1. Right-click on Google Chrome’s shortcut and select Properties option.
2. Now you just need to add following text string at the end of the existing string present in Target text box as shown in following screenshot:
--purge-memory-button
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Make sure there is a blank space between existing string and your new string.
3. That’s it. Apply the changes and restart Chrome.
Now you can access Task Manager by pressing “Shift+Esc” keys together or by selecting Tools -> Task Manager menu and a new button “Purge memory” will be added to Task Manager window.
Thanks to our reader “TheAslan” for sharing this trick…
Check out following video showing the whole method live in action:
UPDATE: This feature has been removed from new versions of Google Chrome. Thanks to our reader “Dan Dascalescu” for the heads up.
Thanks VG, I thing ur Started to tweak Google Chrome
^^ This tip was shared by “TheAslan” one of very active AskVG reader just like you guys. 😉
Might come handy in future. Thanks VG and TheAslan. 🙂
Thank u VG. Please post more Chrome tips.
Thats why I love this site. More power. 😀
Thanks guys. I’m glad you liked the tip. 🙂
@ xoniv
Check this out:
peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
There is numerous command line switches =D
It didn’t work for SRWare Iron (Chromium based)
Any tip?
[VG and] TheAslan ftw!!!!!! +1 hellll yeah
Enable smooth scroll in Chromium without installing any extension (might work in Chrome too):
Type chrome://flags in your address bar and hit enter, new window opens, then browse that window until you see this:
oi48.tinypic.com/kdwchy.jpg
Then just click “Enable” button and then hit appearing “Relaunch” button bottom of the screen, Chromium restarts itself, smooth scroll should be now enabled, if you want to disable it then just follow the steps above and change hit “Disable” button and then “Relaunch”.
PS:
There’s few good and very effective config in chrome://flags
Any ideas on why I cant get this to work on W8 pro 64? NP on W7 home 64…
Thanks & happy 2013!
It was very good tip but in chrome 26.0.1410.43 m this button simply shuts browser.
This worked when I first set it up but it seems to have been disabled in the latest version, Version 30.0.1599.66 m
Anyone else notice this?
JR
^^ The Purge Memory button still exist, but on Google Chrome 30.0.1599.101 m it crashes the browser
The Purge Memory button was disabled in Chromium – see this issue: code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=350455
Would you like to take down this page, as it needlessly wastes user’s time, or perhaps update to mention this no longer works?
^^ Thanks for the heads up. Added to the topic.
This switch no longer works in the current version of Chrome. If you really want to save memory (100MB+ of memory at that!), then add this switch instead: –disable-gpu.
On my laptop with integrated graphics, adding this switch made no noticeable difference in my browsing experience, including watching YouTube, while reducing Chrome’s memory usage significantly.
Although this no longer works, it never really was that viable to begin with. Performing a purge on active data, even if it is garbage, is just asking to crash your browser and/or plug-ins. If you have the technical knowledge to understand when the purge button is useful, you should be able to code one easily enough….
That being said. At the current time (January 30, 2015) the biggest resource hogs in chrome are tab management & object rendering. While we will have to wait for the devs to improve the object rendering, there are plenty of options out there to assist you in tab control. For example, I use OneTab:
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall?hl=en
There are a LOT of extensions to choose from in this category. But anything that closes or suspends the resources used by your tabs will do the trick. I know a lot of people will ask “Well won’t an extension just slow it down more?” Let’s say you have 8 tabs open, & we’ll say they average about 40MB of RAM each, that’s around 320MB of RAM. However an extension, such as the one I use, consolidates all those tabs down to 1, and suspends their resources. So now you only have 1 tab using 40MB. On slow machines this is a lifesaver. Good Luck everyone on speeding up your browsers!