Use MEM to manage Edge sleeping tabs

Are you one of those who rarely completely close down Microsoft Edge? I know that I am! Microsoft Edge is known for it’s RAM usage while running a lot of open tabs at the same time.

Microsoft has introduced “sleeping tabs” which will put any untouched tabs to sleep after 2h by default. By using sleeping tabs Edge will use less RAM and battery.

In this blog post we will have a look at how to use MEM to configure sleeping tabs.

thumbnail image 1 captioned Median memory usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Median memory usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Source: Microsoft
thumbnail image 2 captioned Average CPU usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Average CPU usage of Microsoft Edge based on performance data aggregated across ~13000 devices
Source: Microsoft

Let’s go!

Manual configuration

Let’s start off by having a look at how to configure sleeping tabs directly from the browser.

  1. Open: “Microsoft Edge
  2. Navigate to: edge://settings/system
  3. You will find the settings under “Optimize Performance

Use MEM to configure sleeping tabs

OK, now we know how to do find the settings for manual configuration – let’s have a look at MEM!

  1. Navigate to Microsoft EndPoint Manager and sign in with administrative privileges
  2. Click: “Devices” -> “Configuration profiles” -> “Create profile
  3. Platform: “Windows 10 and later
  4. Profile type: “Settings catalog (preview)
  5. Click: “Create
  6. Name: Chose a fitting name, I will use: “W10/W11 – Edge Sleeping Tabs
  7. Click: “Next
  8. At Configuration settings click: “+Add Settings
  9. Click: “Microsoft Edge” -> “Sleeping Tabs Settings
  10. Mark: “Configure Sleeping Tabs” & “Set the background tab inactivity timeout for Sleeping Tabs
  11. Enable both settings (to the left)
  12. Set the inactivity as per your need. I will set it to “5 minutes of inactivity
  13. Click: “Next
  14. Assign per your need
  15. Click: “Next” -> “Create

There we go. We have now successfully created and deployed a policy to configure sleeping tabs. If you hover over an inactive tab you should get “This tab is sleeping to save resources

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