Teams Hogging Your PC? Here's How to Fix High Memory & CPU Usage
Is Microsoft Teams hogging your PC’s resources? It’s a common problem, but thankfully, there are fixes! This guide dives into why Teams can be such a resource hog and provides actionable solutions to reclaim your PC’s performance.
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Why is Teams So Resource-Intensive?¶
Teams is built on Electron, a platform known for loading tons of libraries. Think of it like bringing your entire toolbox to every job, even if you only need a hammer. This contributes to high memory usage. On top of that, Teams uses Chromium for rendering, which is visually demanding and gobbles up even more resources. Lastly, Teams can sometimes clash with other programs, especially the Teams Meeting Add-in for Office on Windows 10, leading to high CPU usage.
Taming the Teams Beast: Solutions for High Memory and CPU Usage¶
Here’s the good news: You don’t have to live with a sluggish PC. Here are some proven strategies to fix those performance woes:
1. Disable Hardware Acceleration¶
- Open Teams Settings -> General.
- Turn off GPU hardware acceleration.
- Fully quit Teams (right-click the system tray icon and close).
- Refresh your desktop (right-click -> Refresh).
- Restart Teams and see if things have improved.
- Bonus Tip: Consider disabling Teams as your default Office chat app (in the same General tab).
2. Say “No” to Read Receipts¶
Read receipts can surprisingly impact performance. To disable them:
- Click your profile picture in Teams -> Settings -> Privacy.
- Toggle off Read receipts.
- Close and restart Teams.
3. Spring Cleaning: Clear the Teams Cache¶
Teams can sometimes get bogged down accessing cached files. Here’s how to clean house:
- Press Windows + R to open the Run window.
- Type
%appdata%and hit Enter. - Navigate to
C:\\Users\\UserName\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\Teams. - Carefully delete only the files within these folders:
tmp,blob_storage,cache,GPUcache,databases, andlocal storage. - In the
IndexedDBfolder, only delete the.dbfile. - Close and restart your computer.
4. Disable the Outlook Add-in¶
That pesky Outlook Add-in can be a major culprit. To disable it:
- Open Outlook -> Options -> Add-ins.
- Uncheck Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Office.
- Save and restart Outlook.
5. Background Program Purge¶
Close any unnecessary background programs hogging resources:
- Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) -> Processes tab.
- Right-click on unwanted programs and select End task.
6. Tune-Up Visual Effects¶
Windows visual effects can tax your system. Streamline them for better performance:
- Search for “adjust performance” in the Windows search bar.
- Select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.
- Choose the Visual Effects tab.
- Select Adjust for best performance.
- Restart your computer.
7. Boost Your Page File Size¶
A larger page file can improve performance, especially if you have limited RAM:
- Search for
SystemPropertiesAdvancedin the Windows search bar. - Click Settings under the Performance section.
- Go to the Advanced tab.
- Under Virtual Memory, click Change.
- Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
- Select Custom Size and set a larger page file size (16 GB is a good starting point).
- Save and apply changes, then relaunch Teams.
8. The Nuclear Option: Reinstall Teams¶
If all else fails, a fresh install might be the answer:
- Uninstall Teams completely.
- Reinstall the latest version.
Take Back Your PC!¶
We’ve covered a lot of ground, from tweaking settings to a complete reinstall. Hopefully, one of these solutions will help you reclaim your PC’s performance from the clutches of resource-hungry Teams. Let us know in the comments which solution worked best for you, or if you have any other tips to share! We’re all in this together, fighting the good fight against slow PCs. Come back and visit us again for more helpful tips and tricks!
