Tab Unloader

Too many tabs eating your RAM? One click puts them all to sleep. Tab Unloader frees the memory a tab holds without closing it. The tab stays exactly where it is — same position, same title, same favicon — and reloads the moment you click it. Nothing is lost from your tab strip. WHAT IT DOES • One button unloads every eligible tab at once — or press Ctrl+Shift+U (Cmd+Shift+U on Mac) without opening the popup. • Lock any site with the padlock and it will never be unloaded. The lock applies to the site, not to one tab, so it survives restarts, new windows, and navigation within the site. • Pinned tabs and tabs playing sound are spared by default. Both are optional. • Auto-unload tabs you haven't touched for N minutes. • Works across all windows, or only the current one. • The counter shows how many tabs can be unloaded right now. PRIVACY No network requests. No page content access. No accounts, no analytics, no ads. The extension cannot read what is on your pages — it only sees the tab list, which is what it needs to unload them. Your settings and locked sites sync through your own Google account. HOW IT WORKS It calls Chrome's built-in tabs.discard() — the same mechanism Chrome uses when it runs low on memory. Nothing exotic, nothing fragile. GOOD TO KNOW • Chrome does not allow unloading the active tab of a window. Those are marked "active" in the list. • Unsaved text in forms is lost when a tab unloads, exactly as it would be when Chrome unloads a tab itself. Lock your mail, drafts and admin panels. • Auto-unload needs Chrome 121 or newer. The button works everywhere. Free, and free of tricks.