This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

firefox doesn't release memory

  • 1 reply
  • 7 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

more options

Why is Firefox hogging so much memory? I have to close/start Firefox about once an hour just to release memory. Firefox starts at about 165Mb and shortly will top out at over 550Mb when I'm forced to restart due to it's slowing down.. I normally only have two or three tabs open at a time. Is there any adjustment or tweak I can make that would release memory automatically?

Why is Firefox hogging so much memory? I have to close/start Firefox about once an hour just to release memory. Firefox starts at about 165Mb and shortly will top out at over 550Mb when I'm forced to restart due to it's slowing down.. I normally only have two or three tabs open at a time. Is there any adjustment or tweak I can make that would release memory automatically?

All Replies (1)

more options

You can open the about:memory page to see the current memory usage. There is also a button at the bottom of that page to minimize the memory usage. so you can try that.

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).