Edge taking a long time to restore tabs, and using masses of RAM

I generally have two Edge windows open, one with tab groups for various projects, etc, and a second window for random pages I have open. I'm a bit lazy, and usually leave lost of tabs open, so the primary window has around 600 tabs open (), and the secondary one has around 70 open. However, this has never caused me any issues, and Edge has always started up quickly, and never used that much RAM. I tend to leave the PC on the whole time, so most of these tabs are sleeping to save resources.

For some reason, when I came back to my PC today, the second window had closed. Normally if this happens, pressing Ctrl-Shft-T reopens it. However, this time it didn't. It just opened a few random pages, each in a separate window, until nothing more happened.

I have a nightly disk image running, so I renamed the C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data folder to something else, and copied the folder from last night's backup.

When I started Edge, it opened up the primary window with all my tab groups, but not the second. I did Ctrl-Shft-T, and a second window opened with what looks like the right tabs, but both Edge windows showed as not responding. I decided to leave it and see what happened. After a while, the Edge windows became responsive, but if I click on a tab, the page takes a very long time to do load.

I can see in Task Manager that Edge is using around 50% of the CPU, and about 64Gb of RAM. I have 96Gb, so the PC is still usable, but the RAM is steadily going up, so it's likely to cause some problems soon.

I have Edge version Version 135.0.3179.54 (Official build) (64-bit) on Windows 11, version 24H2 (OS Build 26100.3476)

Anyone any idea what might be going on?

You mentioned this huge number of tabs but you did not mention what add-ons you have in Edge. Though I can not imagine running that many open tabs, nor can I imagine the need to do so, the more (and type) of add-ons your run, the more ram is used. Even in a sleeping tab, I believe that the add-ons still use ram. Someone can correct me if I am wrong about that.

I have tested browser ram usage with add-ons both active and disabled. Add-ons are ram hogs.

700 tabs.
What a trainwreck.
Good luck sorting it out.

600+ tabs!?!?!? Ridiculous!!!

MrYossu said:

I decided to leave it and see what happened. After a while, the Edge windows became responsive, but if I click on a tab, the page takes a very long time to do load.

Click to expand...

Efficiency mode and sleeping tabs can cause the lag. Try to disable them, Windows will force it's own Efficiency mode.

Wow, some strong feelings here! I know many people who have this many tabs open, seems to be common amongst software devs.

Anyway, Windows rebooted itself last night, and Edge started up as quickly as usual, with both window, all tabs and a sensible amount of RAM, so whatever it was seems to have righted itself.