Google has spent over a decade polishing Chrome to be the best possible web browsing experience out there. They’ve come a long way for sure, but Chrome is still notorious for being a memory hog.
If you’ve got even a few tabs open in Chrome along with a few extensions, Chrome can easily take up a majority of your RAM. So if you’re getting an error message saying there’s ‘not enough memory to open this page’, here are a few fixes you can try out.
Note that while the steps and solutions given in this article may pertain to Chrome, all browsers can face low memory issues, and these solutions will still apply.
Also read: 8 ways to stop Google Chrome search engine changing to Yahoo
Clear our background processes
Before you start killing browser tabs to save up on memory, try closing some unnecessary background processes that might be hogging up your memory without doing anything useful. Just head over to the Task Manager and find any processes that aren’t system-required and close them off if they’re using too much RAM.
Close your tabs
If you’ve got a hundred tabs open in your browser at any given point in time, you’re going to face problems with memory. The best way to avoid this (apart from cramming more RAM in your PC) is to only open tabs that you actually need.
Disable extensions
Having a ton of extensions also impacts how much RAM Chrome uses. The more extensions you have actively running inside your browser, the more memory it’s going to need.
Head over to chrome://extensions and try disabling all your extensions to check if the browser starts functioning as normal again.
If a malfunctioning extension is causing the ‘not enough memory to open this page’ error, disable and uninstall it until the developer pushes an update with a patch.
Also read: How to fix Err_Cache_Miss in Google Chrome?
Clear your browser’s data
It’s not uncommon for Chrome to save massive amounts of data in the cache, which, as you can guess, amounts to high RAM usage. Clear out this data to help free up some RAM.
Step 1: Type in chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in your browser’s address bar and hit Enter.
Step 2: Select the cache and cookies options and make sure the Time range is set to All time. Click on the Clear now button to clear out all the data.
Disable Hardware acceleration
Disabling hardware acceleration can also help free up space in your system’s memory, eventually resolving the issue.
Step 1: Click on the three-dots icon on the top-right and click on the Settings from the options below.
Step 2: Search for Hardware acceleration. You’ll find the setting under System. Just toggle the switch off and then use the Relaunch button to restart Chrome.
Increase page filing
Increasing the page file size will allow more of your HDD/SSD to be used in place of RAM when there’s no memory available.
Step 1: Press the Windows key and search for advanced system settings. Then, click on the corresponding option.
Step 2: Under the Advanced tab, click on the Settings button in the Performance section.
Step 3: Go to the Advanced tab and click Change under Virtual Memory.
Step 4: Uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option.
Step 5: Change the value to a higher amount than it already was.
This should resolve the memory issue with your browser and fix the ‘not enough memory to open this page’ error.
Also read: How to fix ‘this site can’t be reached’ error on Chrome?
