How to Use Efficiency Mode in Windows 11 / 10

The efficiency of any system is dependent on the availability of the resources like CPU, RAM, etc. for the actively running applications on the system. Usually, the applications that are not closed and are either not active but idle on the system, consume a lot of RAM, dissipate more heat, affect the battery life, etc. which reduces the efficiency of the system.

Keeping in mind the above factors and to improve the system performance, Microsoft introduced a feature called Efficiency mode, which when enabled, gets activated and frees up the resources that are used by the inactive app in the background.

If you are not sure how this can be done on your system, we will explain it in this post. Now let us see how to use efficiency mode in windows 11 using the task manager.

 

How to Use Efficiency Mode in Windows 11 / 10 using Task Manager

Step 1: Firstly open the Task Manager by pressing the WindowsX keys together to view the context menu and then hitting the T key on the keyboard.



NOTE: You can also use the direct keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + ESC keys together.

Step 2: This opens up the task manager window on the system.

Step 3: Under the Processes tab, you will get to see the list of many applications that are currently running on the system, which may be active or idle.

Step 4: To see which application is consuming the highest CPU, click on the CPU column header, which arranges the applications list in ascending order. The application, which is on top of the list is the one which is using most of the CPU.

Step 5: Now make a note of those applications and click the Name column header as shown in the below image.

 

Cpu Task Manager 11zon

 

Step 6: You can see most of the applications have many processes opened on the system.

Step 7: So expand the application and right-click on the process that you want to enable its efficiency mode and click Efficiency mode.

 

Steam Efficiency Mode 11zon

 

Step 8: Now a prompt will appear on the screen for confirmation. So click Turn on efficiency mode so it gets activated for that particular process.

 

Turn On Efficiency Mode 11zon

 

NOTE: You may notice that for some applications/processes, the efficiency mode option gets greyed out and you will be able to enable it. This is because it is a core process in the system, which has to consume a certain portion of the system’s resources. So you can skip it.

 

Efficiency Mode Greyed Out 11zon

 

Step 9: Now you can see that a green colour leaf-shaped icon appears in front of that application in the task manager list as shown in the below screenshot.

 

Green Leaf 11zon



 

Step 10: After enabling it if you wish to disable the efficiency mode, then simply expand the application if there are many processes running at once.

Step 11: Then, right-click on the process whose efficiency mode is turned on and click Efficiency mode once from the context menu as shown in the image below.

 

Efficiency Mode Turn Off 11zon

 

Step 12: Now automatically the green leaf-shaped icon will get disappeared in front of it.