The two toggles that do most of the damage
The first is "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" — with it on, Chrome never really exits, keeps its caches warm and keeps writing after the last window closes. The second is "Preload pages", which speculatively downloads the pages it thinks you will visit next; on a news- and search-heavy diet that is hundreds of megabytes a week for pages you often never open. Neither is a bug — both trade your disk for perceived speed — but together they defeat the cache rotation that would otherwise keep Chrome honest. Turn both off in Settings, and Chrome's footprint stops growing the moment you do.
Profiles, PWAs and offline copies: the invisible multipliers
Every profile in Chrome is a full second browser: its own cache, its own site storage, its own copy of everything, with no sharing between them. Installed PWAs and "open as window" shortcuts repeat the trick per app, each with a Service Worker cache that no settings page shows you. And web apps with offline mode — Google Docs offline, Drive file mirrors — are licensed to copy your data locally without ever telling you the total.
- Each extra profile is a complete second copy of cache and site storage
- Every installed PWA keeps its own Service Worker cache, invisible in Settings
- Google Docs offline and Drive web apps store local copies under site data
- Per-site storage for sites you visited once — heavy web apps can hold gigabytes
- Streaming media preloads video chunks into the cache before you press play
- Downloads with "Ask where to save" off funnel everything into one folder
The 30-minute audit that shrinks Chrome for good
Open Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies → "Sites allowed to use third-party cookies", or Site settings → "View permissions and data stored across sites", and sort by size: delete the storage of every site you do not actively use. Remove dead PWAs in chrome://apps, delete the profiles you have not opened since last year, and switch off offline copies in the Docs and Drive settings. Clear "Cached images and files" once — and keep cookies and passwords, so no logins are lost. Then set "Ask where to save each file", and let the Downloads folder stop being a landfill. After this pass, resist the urge to clear the cache weekly: an empty cache just re-downloads everything you actually use, which costs more traffic than it saves.
Questions and Answers
Why is Chrome taking up so much disk space?
Cache, per-site storage, and one full data set per profile; a heavy web-app user racks up several gigabytes without a single abnormal file. The site-data view shows the split.
How do I clear Chrome data without losing logins?
Clear only "Cached images and files" and keep cookies and passwords; for individual sites, delete their stored data in Site settings instead of wiping everything.
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