What causes Safari to use so much memory?

[jerwin]

my Safari Networking process is consuming somewhere on the order of 50-60 Gigabytes, and it's starting to slow down my machine.

 

[casperes1996]

my Safari Networking process is consuming somewhere on the order of 50-60 Gigabytes, and it's starting to slow down my machine.

Sounds like a corrupted preference file.
Try this

With the Finder app active
cmd+shift+g
"~/Library/"
Find Safari and move the folder somewhere else
Reopen Safari

The browser will be entirely cleared. All browser history, auto-fill info, extensions etc. will be removed (if you need it back just put the folder back). If this solves the issue, there's something the browser was keeping that was messing with it.

 

[KALLT]

Have you restarted Safari? Sometimes a complete quit without restoring windows (command–option–Q) may help resolve issues.

 

[jerwin]

Well, yes, I restarted Safari eventually, and SafariNetworking crawled back down to (checks) 48 MB I'm wondering if the reading list could contribute this periodic instability.

 

[KALLT]

I am not using the reading list, but with currently 14 tabs opened, Safari Networking uses 16 MB uncompressed memory or 47 MB ‘real memory’.

 

[yep-sure]

I don't use the Reading List, but my Safari is usually using about 2.5GB of memory with about 10-12 tabs open. It makes the whole thing run dog slow, I usually have to close and re-open Safari a few times a day to get the memory usage back down and the application usable,

This problem is exclusive to Sierra for me, as are most other problems I've been experiencing.

 

[jerwin]

I am not using the reading list, but with currently 14 tabs opened, Safari Networking uses 16 MB uncompressed memory or 47 MB ‘real memory’.

I use the reading list extensively, and quite often end up with about 40-50 tabs in multiple windows, all told. I've never taken "clean desktop" policies very seriously.

(The Safari Networking process manages "top sites" iirc. It may also be used with the reading list.)

 

[casperes1996]

This problem is exclusive to Sierra for me, as are most other problems I've been experiencing.

Do you have problems on multiple machines? Have you reformatted the drive and reinstalled the OS?

 

[yep-sure]

Do you have problems on multiple machines? Have you reformatted the drive and reinstalled the OS?

I don't own multiple machines.

And no I haven't reformatted. I've mentioned it in other posts, but I 'd hoped that when I switched to OSX from Windows way back when, that my days of formatting to fix poor performance in operating systems was over. With all the problems Sierra has brought it seems like that dream is now over (although while the sharp decline in quality really started with Yosemite, it still didn't require a complete reformat, just a downgrade) I don't have the time to go through all that at the moment, so for now I'll continue to complain about the Sierra problems I have on MacRumours.

 

[KALLT]

(The Safari Networking process manages "top sites" iirc. It may also be used with the reading list.)

Safari Networking is basically the process that handles all the network access in Safari. Each website is loaded through it and the raw data is then handed to separate Safari Web Content processes that render the data, which themselves have no network access (for security reasons). It could really be anything. I don’t think Safari Networking is supposed to persist a lot of data. Are you using any media plugins or are loading video/audio?

 

[casperes1996]

And no I haven't reformatted. I've mentioned it in other posts, but I 'd hoped that when I switched to OSX from Windows way back when, that my days of formatting to fix poor performance in operating systems was over. With all the problems Sierra has brought it seems like that dream is now over (although while the sharp decline in quality really started with Yosemite, it still didn't require a complete reformat, just a downgrade) I don't have the time to go through all that at the moment, so for now I'll continue to complain about the Sierra problems I have on MacRumours.

All systems can get corruptions and reformatting is good practice every once in a while no matter what OS you run. Is it less often necessary on macOS? Yes. Has it ever been totally pointless to do? No

 

[E Walkie]

my Safari Networking process is consuming somewhere on the order of 50-60 Gigabytes, and it's starting to slow down my machine.

There is a bug in Safari it that stores a huge list of recently closed tabs and that gets loaded into memory when Safari starts. That file can be a few gigs in size. The solution is to quit Safari and delete the file ~/Library/Safari/RecentlyClosedTabs.plist (empty the trash). After that Safari should run