Browsers and Mail Change Inactivity Timeout for Sleeping Tabs in Microsoft Edge

This tutorial will show you how to change the background tab inactivity timeout for sleeping tabs in Microsoft Edge for your account or all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Microsoft Edge is the AI-powered browser. A smarter way to browse. As the only browser built and optimized for Windows, it’s AI-powered tools are designed to help you make the most of your time online. Whether you’re searching, shopping or gaming, AI-powered tools and a security-first approach help you stay productive, save money, and get things done your way.

The sleeping tabs feature in Microsoft Edge makes background tabs sleep after two hours of inactivity by default in order to free up resources for active tabs, new tabs, and other applications on your device. Sleeping tabs will fade to indicate they’ve released resources. To resume a sleeping tab, click/tap on it like a normal tab. The tab will un-fade and your content will be immediately available.

When efficiency mode is turned on and active, the Put inactive tabs to sleep after the specified amount of time setting will always get set to 5 minutes of inactivity and grayed out. To set the amount of time using the sleeping tabs settings, turn off efficiency mode.

Reference:








1 Open Microsoft Edge.

2 Click/tap on the Settings and more (3 dots) button, and click/tap on Settings. (see screenshot below)


3 Click/tap on System and performance in the left pane, and click/tap on Performance in the right pane. (see screenshots below)

If you do not see a left pane, then either click/tap on the 3 bars menu button towards the top left OR widen the horizontal borders of the Microsoft Edge window until you do.

4 Under Memory, select an inactivity time you want in the Put inactive tabs to sleep after a set time drop menu. (see screenshot below)

1 hour is the default setting.

It is required to have Automatically put tabs to sleep turned on to be able to change Put inactive tabs to sleep after a set time.

If Enable energy saver or Use energy saver even when connected to power is turned on, it will disable and gray out the Put inactive tabs to sleep after a set time setting.

You must be signed in as an administrator to use this option.

This option uses the SleepingTabsTimeout policy for Microsoft Edge.

1 Do step 2 (30 Seconds), step 3 (5 Minutes), step 4 (15 Minutes), step 5 (30 Minutes), step 6 (1 Hour), step 7 (2 Hours), step 8 (3 Hours), step 9 (6 Hours), step 10 (12 Hours), or step 11 (default) below for what you want.

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override and gray out Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This is the default setting to allow using Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

12 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

13 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

14 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

15 If Microsoft Edge is currently open, then close and reopen Microsoft Edge to apply.

16 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink