Are you using the most recent versions? How much memory is being used? Have you tried the steps at Firefox uses too much memory or CPU resources - How to fix?

Hi Tyler

I do not want to spend a lot of time fixing stuff that should not be a problem in the first place. If a browser or email system is idle it has no need to be using hardly any memory. Admittedly with Thunderbird I use 13.0.1 because it has a usable interface and has some colour to it on icons etc. Thunderbird seems to be on 175MB's a lot of the time and Firefox (which is the latest offering) on circa 350MB's with absolutely nothing going on.

James Jul 21, 2015 5:47:33 AM So how little Ram do you have if you think that is too much ?

Hi James your response above that arrived by email is not on this topic for some reason?

My answer: Most things on a Mac tick over at 40-30MB's and below. Mozilla Apps have an accumulating effect when not being used unless app is totally closed down.

I currently find that this combination works well

I use this for e-mail, and html editing: SeaMonkey (27.3 MB) - Web-browser, advanced e-mail, newsgroup and feed client, IRC chat, and HTML editing made simple—all your Internet needs in one application . . . http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

I use this switch so that it goes directly to mail, instead of the browser, put a Shortcut in Startup: "C:\Program Files\SeaMonkey\seamonkey.exe" -mail

Minimize SeaMonkey Mail to Tray with: PowerMenu 1.51 . . . http://www.abstractpath.com/powermenu/

Thanks for a helpful and informative reply, but I do not liker Sea Monkey unfortunately. I just want Mozilla to adjust their Apps so that they do not take up lots of memory when they are idle. I'm sure it's doable but one wonders if Mozilla can get away from trying to be everything to everybody? It's all very much like tony blair and look what he turned into.

I was using Thunderbird. It seemed clunky to me.

When I had to do a re-install, I decided to look at other e-mail programs.

Opera Mail is very good, but no longer being developed (abandonware). It said I had two e-mails when there was only one (maybe the other was the copy in "All Mail." IDK, but this seemed buggy to me, so . . .

I tried Claws Mail. It was good, but text only. There was an html plugin that let you see html, but it crashed the program, and I saw this complaint from a few years ago or so, so, I needed to see html e-mail so . . .

I had the SeaMonkey Browser for html editing - I recalled that it had e-mail - ok, I'll give it a try . . . It looks exactly like Thunderbird to me, and is less complicated, I'd recommend giving it a try. As I mentioned, it only takes 27.3 MB when idle

Best Regards

Thanks. I'll have another look at it. If memory serves me well I think thatthere may have been other issues besides me not liking SeaMonkey as I have a lot of folders on Thunderbird and would need to transfer everything into any new system.

Best regards

After you install it, click on Tools / Import

They show how to go from SeaMonkey Mail to Thunderbird:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Migration

. . . so one must be able to go the other way, too, so no work is necessary

350MB of RAM for firefox is not a lot (nor is it a lot for any modern web browser). If we were talking 1.3GB while idle, then we could be concerned, but 350MB isn't much. You can test with a fresh profile to see if something in your old profile is taking up more memory, update to Mac 10.10 (always best to be on the most modern OS for performance reasons), etc. but that's honestly not a bad RAM measurement. My Firefox has been open for two days, have about ten tabs open currently, and is using just over a GB.

Is your Mac so strapped for RAM that the usage is causing problems? That's the only case where this would be bad. Otherwise, if you have the free RAM, let Firefox use it.

With one tab open:

Firefox - my main browser 210 MB . . . normal . . . 7 Extensions 97 MB . . . Safe Mode . . . the Add-ons take require a lot

SeaMonkey 77 MB . . . but something is off with the rendering 80 MB . . . Preferences / Appearance / Colors / [dot] Always use the colors and background specified by the web page

38 MB . . . IE 11 . . . no add-ons . . . I only use IE if something is not working in FF

note that you can't compare IE with Firefox, as many of IE's components are loaded into Windows itself and don't count towards it's actual RAM usage.

Thank you Tyler and Sludge7051x1 for your comments which are both interesting.

Sludge7051x1, as I use a Mac it may be a bit different, however, if using SeaMonkey do you have to go to Window, after opening from dock to select Mail o rBrowser every time? It one does I would find that a bit slow having just hit Firefox or Thunderbird to use either App.

The other thing that I cannot quite get to grips with at present is importing my Thunderbird address book because SeaMonkey wants to import everything on my Mac which I do not want as, my Mac Mail address book is not required in Thunderbird or SeaMonkey.

I don't know about Mac, but on my system, Win 8.1, I have three Shortcuts with these three switches, to go to what I want:

"C:\Program Files\SeaMonkey\seamonkey.exe" "C:\Program Files\SeaMonkey\seamonkey.exe" -edit "C:\Program Files\SeaMonkey\seamonkey.exe" -mail

. . . the browser, html editor (Composer), and e-mail, respectively.

I learned about them here, there are more switches available: http://seamonkey.ilias.ca/generalfaq/commandlines

I see that you can also do this:

Edit / Preferences / Appearance / When SeaMonkey starts up, open:

Browser Mail & Newsgroups Composer Address Book ChatZilla

If it won't let you specify to just import Thunderbird, I would let it import what it wants, see what it does, and then delete within SeaMonkey the data that you don't want to use SeaMonkey with. (As a safety measure, you can export data from the programs you're concerned about, and if something happens, you can just re-import the data.)

Your data will remain in the programs from which you imported it. It's not like it removes it from those programs, and puts it in SeaMonkey.

From my experience, importing info won't break anything, and if you don't like SeaMonkey Mail, you can just de-install it, everything is gone, and you're back to where you were.