Google is making a change in Chrome on Windows to stop the browser from closing unexpectedly after running out of memory when users paste large clipboard content.
Chromium team found that copying huge amounts of data from the Windows clipboard, especially HTML, could trigger out-of-memory crashes in Chrome. This happens when the browser tries to allocate more memory than it can safely handle while reading pasted content.
Developer notes show around 400 out-of-memory crashes linked to this issue over a four-month period. All of them occurred while Chrome was reading HTML from the clipboard.
The 256MB clipboard limit in Chrome on Windows
The problem appears when Chrome processes formatted text or HTML copied from the clipboard. If the clipboard holds around 500MB of data, Chrome can attempt to allocate nearly double that amount during text conversion. This sudden demand for memory causes the browser to terminate.
To prevent this, Google has added a hard limit on how much data Chrome will read from the clipboard on Windows.
The team discussed where to set the limit. An earlier proposal suggested 128MB, but that raised concerns about blocking real-world use cases involving large clipboard content.
After reviewing crash data and usage patterns, Google raised the limit to 256MB. One example mentioned during the discussion was the collaboration platform Lark, where some users occasionally paste large messages.
With the change in place, the clipboard limit in Chrome on Windows is set at 256MB. The browser now stops reading data above that size instead of running out of memory during large paste operations.
The change applies when Chrome reads data from the Windows clipboard during paste actions. Google has not said when the fix will reach all users.
The limit applies to text, HTML, and PNG data read from the Windows clipboard.
Normal pastes work as usual. Users who copy massive exports may see the paste fail silently instead of Chrome crashing or a tab closing unexpectedly.
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