stop safari memory warning

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Safari: This webpage is using significant memory

Watching West World on Amazon and I'm constantly getting this message. I have a 2020 MBP with plenty of memory and hard drive space, I do not need to see this message pop up repeatedly while I'm watching a show or doing anything else that requires a lot of memory, this is really silly.

Thanks for your help.

[Edited by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jun 1, 2020 10:53 AM

Posted on Jun 11, 2020 10:49 PM

I second this! I have been bedeviled by this annoying Safari popup message for months. It started appearing about 6 months ago on my 2012 MacBook Air with 4gb of memory. That machine was showing other signs of age so I traded it in for a 2020 MacBook Pro with 16gb of memory. Imagine my dismay upon seeing the same annoying prompt on a brand new MacBook with plenty of memory. Facebook's website is the culprit in my case. The message literally pops up every 2-3 minutes, dozens of times a day. I implore Apple to let users disable this. Per the advice of AndreWantsToHelp, I have asked Apple to address this issue on their feedback page: https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html ... I implore others to do the same.

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Jun 11, 2020 10:49 PM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

Jun 1, 2020 11:35 AM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

Remember you can also adjust settings for any particular website in Safari by right clicking (Control Key + left click) on the web address bar. This will bring up a context menu that has: Setting For This Website...

This allows you to set specific permissions including Auto-Play of video, or Never Allow, et.

Jun 1, 2020 3:02 PM in response to Brian Lazzara

Safari handles the play back just fine. I have Safari, Firefox & Chrome installed and running with multiple profiles running + A VM, a 4k monitor attached, 4 total virtual desktops and other apps open and the computer is barely breaking a sweat. I'm just tired of seeing this message in Safari and I'm hoping others who are tired of it will see this and submit a request for change. Plus I prefer Safari since it's integrated with Keychain, which the other browsers can't access.

Jun 1, 2020 11:31 AM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

This happens sometimes when a webpage is trying to run too many background processes. This is a built in safety feature that tries to help prevent your battery from being drained, and could also warn you against suspicious activity like background crypto-mining.

Anyhow if you really want to watch this page less encumbered, I would just try loading it on a different browser such as Chrome, which seems to do better at handling extensive video content. I basically just use chrome for all my streaming services, and retain Safari for business and work use. This keeps them compartmentalized also so that you're not jeopardizing sensitive information.

Jun 16, 2020 4:55 AM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

I have this problem too. If you open Activity Monitor you will probably see multiple processes called Safari Web Content (cached). The only way to put things back to normal again is to quit Safari and re-launch it.

Oct 15, 2020 4:07 PM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

I’m having a lot of trouble with this as well. Closing Safari and reopening does not work. Force quitting does. Not something I like to do. My pro is new, as well, and I have plenty of memory, not a lot of downloaded extras, either. What is happening does not make sense and def needs a fix. Apple, please help! For me, it seems to be most problematic on web pages with lots of ads that I don’t even pay attention to. Not so much video streaming, although I do have trouble then, too.

Oct 22, 2020 9:17 AM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

Like many of you, I get this message, too, but only on two sites: facebook and Shockwave Unlimited. Getting the message would just be annoying if that is all it was. But if I am in the middle of a game on Shockwave, the page will refresh and all the progress I've made is lost. Grrrr. When I get the message on Facebook, the app is definitely running slow. 2019 iMac Catalina 10.15.7m Safari 14, 16 gigs of Ram. BTW, I also run Excel, Word and several other websites, Photoshop and Acrobat and never get the message on these apps. Only those two Safari pages. I've tried all the steps suggested in the Apple forums and calls to Apple. Nothing helps. I'll probably use Time Machine to install my system from August, which was before this started. =(

Nov 3, 2020 2:18 PM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

Please please please -- just give us a setting to DISABLE this warning message.

I have to run webapps for work that are resource intensive. They are what they are. No amount of content blocking is going to change that. My Macbook is plugged in. It isn't even overheating. It isn't sluggish. Everything is fine. Yet -- YET -- Safari decides it MUST interrupt me sporadically to inform me that I may be having an issue and should probably do something about it. I am not having an issue! My issue is a warning message I cannot turn off changes the aspect ratio of my browser to give me a warning I don't need and can't get rid of! And if I close it... it just comes back whenever it wants! What on EARTH could be the purpose of this? Please please please -- just give Safari a lil button that says "Stop warning me a website is using a lot of resources, I am an adult human who can make his own choices."

Nov 3, 2020 3:41 PM in response to jnardino

I was fortunate to get a customer service person who managed to get my issue escalated to the top of the heap. After 5, 6 phone calls, reinstalling, yadda yadda the engineers read the logs and the reason I was getting these messages on facebook and Shockwave is because they don't have a sort of door on their memory usage like other websites. Big Sur comes out in a few weeks so it's possible the developers of these sites have made the necessary changes to stop this inconvenience by going to the Apple Develop pages. But Shockwave has added a memo on their main page that their site works best with Chrome or Firefox. facebook is just slacking. So come on Big Sur. I am sorry you are having problems; I suspect these problems are for the same reason as mine. TJM Case # 101214630990 =)

Nov 6, 2020 1:18 PM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

For what it's worth, the fix for me was disabling some Safari Extensions. I had previously ruled out extensions causing the issue but after speaking with a senior tech we realized that turning off the extensions and then quitting/restarting Safari wasn't sufficient to disable an extension even though they show in Preferences as off (unchecked). I had to (1) uncheck the extensions, (2) quit Safari and then (3) restart the Mac . After doing this, the memory problem disappeared, so we knew it was an extension.

I have since turned 1Password and Evernote extensions back on with no problems so it's probably Grammarly and/or Honey causing the memory problems.

Hope this helps someone!

Nov 6, 2020 1:35 PM in response to bradbishop

Not to be contrarian, just informing in case this helps anyone upstairs wake up to this -- but I don't have a memory problem! I run two extensions -- Ghostery and Adblock. I have (as of my typing right now) 4 gigs of wired memory free out of 16.

And EVEN IF my system was slowing down because I was using too much memory... who cares! Let it! *The warning is worse than the slowdown*. *Let me turn off the warning*. *It is obtrusive and ruining my experience*.

Nov 21, 2020 6:22 PM in response to AndreWantsToHelp

I am 100% tired of seeing this, it comes up on a lot of websites, not streaming sites for me. I went back to safari after all the security issues with Chrome and I would like them to make a disable feature for this. They were supposed to improve Safari, and this doesn't feel like an improvement

Jan 6, 2021 3:48 AM in response to jnardino

I totally agree, Apple has to distribute a fix on this. I am encountering this annoying memory notification just by watching Netflix on a brand new MacBook Air M1 with 8GB of RAM with just 5 more tabs open in Safari. This causes seeing this grey bar on the top of the screen during the movie. Seriously?

Jan 17, 2021 6:22 PM in response to border rat

In the last year, maybe two, the only two websites on which I get the "This page is using extensive memory. Close this window to ..." Facebook & Shockwave (puzzles). So for Shockwave, I use Chrome; for Facebook, I just deal with it and open new windows periodically. I'm sorry you're having some, too. —TJ Martin =|

Feb 1, 2021 9:19 PM in response to Brian Lazzara

this doesn't work as I have the same settings, but it keeps sending me the message and shutting down the website. Its ridiculous I'll be in the middle of a lecture and I get the message and it reloads the page. this is a brand new iMac I just purchased.

not happy they need to fix this issue.

please and thank you