Turn on Chrome's Memory Saver and a 16 tab session drops from about 6GB of RAM to about 2GB

Settings, then Performance MakeUseOf's Oluwademilade Afolabi, writing on September 9, chooses Maximum from the three Memory Saver modes, which also offer Moderate and Balanced. Across 16 tabs spanning YouTube, Gmail, Google Docs, Reddit, shopping pages, and articles, he watched memory use fall from roughly 6GB to roughly 2GB with nothing missing from the tab bar. Sleeping tabs reload briefly when you return to them, and he notes that complex web applications holding a session may not restore cleanly, which is what the Always keep these sites active list on the same page is for.

Two settings, both hidden How-To Geek's Vishwamoorthy Ramakrishnan, writing on September 9, starts in the Gemini app: Profile, then Personal Intelligence, then Connected Apps, then Google Workspace, where disabling the connector also disconnects Drive, Docs, and Keep, because Google offers no per app control. The second setting lives in the Gmail app under Settings, your Gmail account, then Google Workspace Smart Features, where Smart Features in Google Workspace is opt out rather than opt in; he found it switched on automatically across several accounts. His closing limit is worth keeping: pasting an email into a Gemini chat still shares it, and such chats may be subject to review by human annotators.

One switch under System MakeUseOf's Brandon Miniman, writing on September 9, found Chrome still holding more than 1GB of RAM in background processes after he had closed it. The three dot menu, then Settings, then System, holds the toggle for continuing to run background apps when Chrome is closed; it ships on by default in Windows, and switching it off dropped his idle usage to 510MB, a reduction of 51%. Two caveats: the setting is Windows only, so Mac users will not find it, and with background apps off, website notifications may arrive late while Chrome is shut.

Add-ins, then Ctrl Alt C XDA's Parth Shah, writing on September 9, spends about two minutes on setup: open PowerPoint, go to Home and then Add-ins, search for Claude for Microsoft 365, install it (Microsoft AppSource carries it too), sign in with a Claude account, and call it up with Ctrl, Alt, and C on Windows. From there he builds most of a deck from a single prompt, repairs weak slides, improves layouts, and summarizes a presentation without leaving the app. The caveats are the account and the finish line: full functionality expects a Claude subscription, and Shah reckons the result is about 80% of the way there in minutes, leaving animations, visual polish, and the final details to you.

One setting, then five habits MakeUseOf's Varun Krishan, writing on September 9, credits a 12% decline over two and a half years to Settings, then Battery, then Battery health, then Charging optimization, where he turns on charging optimization and selects Limit to 80%, since lithium ion cells take more stress toward the top of their range. He leaves adaptive charging on so the phone learns when he unplugs and delays the last stretch of the charge until then. The remaining four are habits rather than switches: keep the phone off heavy work and off heat while charging, slip the case off when it runs warm, do not make a practice of draining to zero, save fast charging for when the clock demands it, and keep Android updated for its power management improvements.