Quick fix: what are those circles on my Chrome tabs?

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Chrome logo surrounded by small illustrations against a pink background.
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
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The issue

You may have noticed recently that of the tabs on your Chrome browser have circles around the tab’s icon and that the icon itself is smaller and slightly faded. What’s that all about — and can I change them back?

You can see how much memory has been freed up by hovering your cursor over the inactive tab.

Quick fix

Chrome’s recent Memory Saver feature, according to Google, “automatically frees up memory from tabs you haven’t used in a while.” The circled tab icons indicate which tabs are currently inactive. To make them active again, you just have to click on them.

The full story

I have a tendency to use a lot of tabs over the course of a working day — and I’m sure a lot of our readers do the same. Some of…

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