Safari Web Content High CPU And Memory Usage on MacOS [Solved]

Safari has become fucking pain in the ass recently. I’m not sure what caused it to get fucked. Safari Web Content process has been eating up more than 100% of CPU and over 2 GB of Memory.

I’m seeing this issue on both iMac and MacBook. I’ve macOS Big Sur on both machines.

Till now I haven’t found a solution so far. Below are some of the solutions which I’ve tried so far and none worked.

The Solution Which Worked For Me

I upgraded OS to macOS Monterey and this problem was gone. I’m still observing though.

Other Solutions Which You Can Try

Low RAM/Memory

The first culprit which anyone would point is low RAM. I’ve fucking 32GB of RAM on my iMac so it doesn’t solve problem. Try adding more RAM if you could, it will certainly improve performance but it will not solve the underlying issue.

Disable Safari Extensions

Another common culprit for Safari or any browser could be extension/plugins. I don’t have any plugin installed so this solution isn’t applicable to me. If you have any extension installed in Safari then you can disable/remove them and try.

To disable/remove extensions go to Safari -> Preferences -> Extensions and disable/remove extensions and try.

Disable Develop Menu

Being a developer having Develop menu showing up all the time is a requirement for us. Some folks have suggested that disabling Develop menu may solve the issue but for me it also didn’t work.

To disable Develop menu go to Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck Show Develop menu in menu bar.

Clear Cache

To clear cache you need to enable Develop menu again. From Develop menu click on Empty Caches. For me this solution also didn’t work.

Reboot

Remember the fucking Windows PCs where the most obvious solution to all problems was to reboot PC? Try doing the same, sometimes it may work. For me this magic also didn’t work in fixing the issue.

Log out of Google Account

Some have suggested that logging out from Google account fixes the issue but that’s not true. In my case Safari Web Content keeps eating CPU and Memory even when I haven’t opened Google pages. Logging out also didn’t resolve the issue.

Quit All Apps

I’m in the habit of keeping plenty of apps and tabs in these apps opened. Quitting all apps doesn’t resolve the issue as it has nothing to do with anything else than Safari itself.