Why does VS Code require so much memory? How can I make it run more memory-efficiently?

Question

Does anyone know how to make VS Code use less memory?

It´s taking more than 2gb, sometimes more than 3 gigabytes to have some 8 files opened.

Answer 1

Check if your extensions are causing the bad things

I have used the guide https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/Performance-Issues#profile-the-running-extensions

to know why VS Code was

• very slow to startup
• taking much ram (3-4 gb)

You can create a CPU profile and share it in the issue with the extension author or us. To create a CPU profile:

• Close all instances of VSCode and start with code --inspect-extensions=9993 or any other port number.
• Execute the Developer: Show Running Extensions Command. This command opens an editor with all the running extensions. To start recording a profile

I found some extension with high delays and they were marked with unresponsive yellow triangle. I disabled them using right click context menu, restarted VS Code, and after that it

• Takes only a few seconds to startup
• Takes only ~250mb of ram