Why the Windows 11 Weather App Uses 1.2GB of RAM

The Windows 11 Weather app uses roughly five times more memory than the equivalent app on macOS, and the gap is not a bug that Microsoft can quietly patch. It is an architectural choice that runs through a large part of the modern Windows inbox, and the numbers make it hard to ignore. When idle, the Weather app consumes more than 1.2 GB of RAM, and in some configurations it climbs toward 1.5 GB, for a program whose only job is to show a temperature and a five-day forecast.^[1]

Apple's Weather app on macOS runs as a single native process at around 246 MB.^[1] The Windows side is not one process at all. Expanding the process tree in Task Manager shows nine separate Chromium sub-processes running under the Weather banner, including a dedicated GPU process and a renderer. The app is built on WebView2, Microsoft's embedded browser engine, which loads what is effectively a version of the MSN Weather website and skins it to look native.^[1][3]

Why a weather app runs a full browser engine

WebView2 is a deliberate platform decision, not a shortcut a single team took. Microsoft has been migrating its first-party inbox apps from legacy Win32 and native rendering toward a shared web stack so that the same UI code can run across Windows, the web, and other surfaces. The cost of that model is the memory footprint of a browser engine per app instance, and Weather is where that cost is most visible because the app is small enough that a browser engine outweighs the feature set it is serving.^[1]

The engineering reality is that a single Chromium instance needs to carry a rendering engine, a JavaScript runtime, a network stack, and separate processes for GPU work and isolated renderers. None of that is wasted, but it is overhead that a purpose-built native weather UI would not incur. Microsoft is already working to reduce the amount of legacy Win32 and WebView2 code across Windows 11 in favour of WinUI, and its Insider communications acknowledge that native apps still use more RAM than they should.^[1] The question for most readers is not whether that migration will finish, but what to do about the footprint in the meantime.

The ad and tracking layer underneath the forecast

Because the Weather app is a web wrapper, the page it renders is the same marketing surface that Microsoft uses for MSN Weather in a browser, and that includes ad placement. The app has been reported showing advertisements alongside forecast content, which is a different contract from the native macOS Weather app, which has no ad layer at all.^[1] The ad surface is also why the process count does not drop when the window is closed and then reopened, because the underlying web session and its resources persist in the background rather than being torn down with the window.

For a machine with 16 GB of RAM, a 1.2 GB weather app is a small fraction of available memory. The story changes on the 8 GB laptops that have become common again as memory prices rise. On an 8 GB system, the Weather app alone can account for roughly 15 percent of total system memory before a single browser tab or document is opened, and at the higher end of the reported range that figure approaches 20 percent.^[4] On a system already close to its practical limit, that is a meaningful chunk handed to an app the user may open once a morning.

What Microsoft has committed to, and what that means for your PC

Microsoft has promised 8 GB RAM PC optimisation by the end of 2026, a commitment that follows the broader pattern of the company reducing the memory cost of its first-party apps as the low-memory segment of the market grows.^[5] The Insider build channel also mentions tuning WebView2 to be more efficient, which addresses the engine-level overhead but not the fundamental decision to run a browser where a native view would do. Tuning a browser engine lowers the constant, it does not remove the term.

What that means in practice: the fix is coming, it is not a single point release, and the apps most affected are the WebView2-based inbox apps, of which Weather is the most visible example. Users who want a reduction now have three options, and the right one depends on how much of the 1.2 GB is tolerable for their machine.

How to reduce the Weather app footprint today

The first option is to stop the app running in the background. Open Settings, go to Apps, then Installed apps, find Weather, select the three-dot menu and choose Advanced options. In the Background app permissions section, set Let this app run in background to Never.^[2] The app will still load its full process tree when opened, but it will not keep Chromium processes resident between uses. On a 16 GB machine this is usually enough, and it costs nothing in functionality.

The second option is to remove the app entirely and use a different weather source. Weather is a pre-installed Microsoft Store app and can be uninstalled from the same Installed apps list. A browser tab pointed at a weather site uses the same Chromium engine, but a single tab is shared across every site you visit rather than a dedicated nine-process tree per app, so the marginal cost is lower. A lightweight native weather app from the Store is the third option, and the trade-off is that most of them are older codebases that update less often than the Microsoft first-party version.

The third option is to do nothing and let the 2026 optimisation work land. If the machine has 16 GB or more, the 1.2 GB is a small price for a first-party app that integrates with the taskbar and start menu, and the footprint is expected to come down as the WinUI migration progresses. If the machine has 8 GB, the background setting change above is the minimum worth doing.

What the numbers say across the inbox

Weather is the most visible case, but the WebView2 pattern extends to other first-party apps, and the memory cost of each one is additive. A system that runs several of these apps in the background carries several small browser engines at once, which is why the total background footprint on a stock Windows 11 machine is larger than any single app screenshot suggests. The 8 GB optimisation commitment is the relevant fix for the aggregate, and it is the reason the low-memory segment of the Windows market is the one to watch over the next two quarters rather than any single app's number in Task Manager.^[1][5]

For readers following the wider memory and performance picture across platforms, the iPhone 18 cycle is the closest parallel on the other side of the ecosystem, and our iOS 27 beta roadmap covers how Apple is managing the same on-device resource budget for the September launch.

Frequently asked questions

Is the high RAM usage in the Weather app a virus or memory leak?

No. The footprint is expected behaviour for a WebView2-based app, not a leak or malware. Expanding the process tree in Task Manager shows the nine Chromium sub-processes that account for the memory, which is the normal process layout for an embedded browser engine.^[1] A genuine leak would show a single process growing over hours, which is not the pattern here. If a single process is climbing without bound, that is worth investigating separately, but the 1.2 GB baseline is the app's design, not an anomaly.

Can I stop the Weather app from running in the background?

Yes. Open Settings, go to Apps, then Installed apps, find Weather, select More options and then Advanced options. Under Background app permissions, set Let this app run in background to Never.^[2] The app loads fully when opened but does not keep its Chromium processes resident between uses, which is the change that most reduces the persistent footprint.

Will Microsoft fix this in a future update?

Partly, and over time rather than in a single release. Microsoft is moving first-party inbox apps toward WinUI and has committed to 8 GB RAM PC optimisation by the end of 2026.^[5] Its Insider build notes also mention tuning WebView2 for efficiency. The direction is clear, the footprint is expected to fall, and the timeline is the rest of 2026 rather than a specific build number.

What is the best alternative to the default Weather app?

It depends on the machine. On 16 GB or more, a browser tab pointing at a weather site is the simplest low-marginal-cost option. On 8 GB, a lightweight native weather app from the Store, or simply removing the app and checking forecasts in a browser only when needed, is the lower-footprint choice. The pre-installed app is not worth keeping resident on a tight-memory system once its background processes are disabled.

Why does the Windows Weather app use more RAM than the macOS version?

The macOS Weather app is a single native process at around 246 MB, while the Windows version is a web wrapper on WebView2 that runs nine Chromium sub-processes for a forecast that does not need a browser engine.^[1] The difference is the architectural model, not a bug in either implementation. Microsoft's path to closing the gap is the WinUI migration and the 8 GB optimisation work, both of which are in progress.