Quick Links

Most operating systems have a built-in task manager or resource monitor that lets you see all active processes and programs running on your computer. The Chrome web browser also has one that helps you end troublesome tabs and extensions.

Open Chrome's Task Manager

To open Chrome's Task Manager, click the "More" button (three dots), hover over "More Tools," and then click on "Task Manager." Alternatively, press Shift+Esc on Windows or Search+Esc on Chrome OS to open Task Manager.

Click the three dots, hover the mouse over "More Tools," and then click on "Task Manager" to open Task Manager.

With Chrome's Task Manager now open, you can see a list of all tabs, extensions, and processes currently running in the browser.

When Task Manager opens, a list of all the tabs, extensions, and processes currently running in Chrome appear in the list.

End Troublesome Processes

You can end any of the processes from this menu, which can be helpful when an extension or tab stops responding. To do this, click on the process and then select "End Process."

Click on a process, and then click "End Process" to kill the process.

You can kill more than one process at a time by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key (Command on Mac), highlighting multiple items from the list, and then hitting the "End Process" button.

Select multiple items with Shift or Ctrl.

View Which Resources Tasks Are Using

However, if you're here to use Task Manager to see which resources each task is using up, Chrome has over 20 categories of stats you can add as new columns. Right-click a task and a context menu will appear with a full list of available stats to choose from.

Sample list of the categories to choose from in Task Manager.

Click on any additional categories to add them to Task Manager. Categories that have a checkmark next to them are already displayed. If you want to remove a specific stat, click on the category and ensure the checkmark is removed.

You can sort specific columns by clicking on a heading. For example, when you click on the Memory Footprint column, the process hogging up the most memory will be sorted to the top of the list.

Example of sorting by high to low.

Click on it again to put the process using up the least amount of memory at the top of the list.

Example of sorting by low to high.

Pro Tip: When you double-click on a tab, extension, or subframe in Task Manager, Chrome will send you directly to the tab. If you clicked on an extension, Chrome sends you to the settings page for that extension in  

        chrome://extensions

.

Related: Windows Task Manager: The Complete Guide