Copilot in intellij uses an absurd amount of memory

[viniciusccarvalho]

Select Topic Area

Question

Body

Hi folks, I have been enjoying quite a lot the plugin so far, it really helps in doing a lot of the mundane repetitive work that once one would need to do.
However I noticed a massive degradation of performance of my system (Mac OS Monterey), and that Intellij was using close to 10Gb of memory.
Not only that, but due the plugin very intensive cpu request, Intellij alone was consuming 10x more energy than the rest of all the applications on the system combined :(
I'm running version 1.4.6.4092 of the plugin on intellij Build #IU-233.13135.103,

I looked into an hprof dump and found that there 67% of the largest offenders in memory usage came from a single class:
CopilotTextInputTextArea

Maybe there's a way to improve all that?

Thanks

[github-actions[bot]]

🕒 Discussion Activity Reminder 🕒

This Discussion has been labeled as dormant by an automated system for having no activity in the last 60 days. Please consider one the following actions:

1️⃣ Close as Out of Date: If the topic is no longer relevant, close the Discussion as out of date at the bottom of the page.

2️⃣ Provide More Information: Share additional details or context — or let the community know if you've found a solution on your own.

3️⃣ Mark a Reply as Answer: If your question has been answered by a reply, mark the most helpful reply as the solution.

Note: This dormant notification will only apply to Discussions with the Question label. To learn more, see our recent announcement.

Thank you for helping bring this Discussion to a resolution! 💬

[valiums00]

Yeah big time, i've got an almost maxed out MacBook Pro and it CHUGS whenever the pane with Copilot chat is open but closing the pane completely resolves the performance issue. Kind of annoying to have to remember to close the pane so often. The plugin isn't open source either so we can't open a PR to fix :sad:

[inneobru]

@slavkobojanic I have the exact same behaviour. As soon i open up Githup Copilot chat the CPU goes up and as soon I close the chat, the CPU is normal again. This behaviour is since Intellij 2024.2. Bevor I didn't had this behaviour. Really odd.

[99sono]

I’m experiencing the same issue:

top - 09:22:23 up 10 min,  0 users,  load average: 2.82, 12.13, 6.73
Tasks:  13 total,   1 running,  12 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  0.8 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 98.8 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.1 si,  0.0 st
MiB Mem :  28068.3 total,  10621.5 free,  11887.9 used,   5558.9 buff/cache
MiB Swap:   7168.0 total,   7168.0 free,      0.0 used.  15544.1 avail Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                                                                                                      3274 wildfly   20   0 9085344   4.0g   1.0g S   6.0  14.6   3:46.90 remote-dev-serv
 3517 wildfly   20   0  121.4g   6.0g  38960 S   0.3  21.8   2:22.33 copilot-languag   (completely out of control)
 3527 wildfly   20   0   11.7g 858536  40308 S   0.3   3.0   0:45.63 java

The IntelliJ Copilot plugin is consuming excessive memory and severely impacting my IntelliJ performance.

Seems to be another relevant thread:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/28571

Also the feedback discussions:

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/110614

On my docker image the versions are as follows.
Copilot plugin version:

1.5.29.7524

IntelliJ Gateway Backend version:

IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2.4
Build #JBC-242.23726.103, built on October 23, 2024

Licensed to ...

Runtime version: 21.0.4+13-b509.26 amd64 (JCEF 122.1.9)
VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o.

Controller in Remote Development

And based on the page:
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/17718-github-copilot/versions

Looks as if am using the greatest and latest.

Note: The intelliJ community forums are also updated on this fact.
https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/22805237904274-Github-copilot-plugin-version-1-5-29-7524-extreme-memory-consumption-when-used-in-rocky-linux-with-IntelliJ-IDEA-2024-2-4-Build-JBC-242-23726-103-built-on-October-23-2024

[wildone]

Still an issue in 2024, IDEA 2024.1.1 Community

Build #IC-241.15989.150, built on April 29, 2024

Right now its using up more than the IDE...

[betasecond]

Still an issue in 2025

PyCharm 2025.1.2
Build #PY-251.26094.141, built on June 10, 2025
Source revision: 0f4e379ff77b9
Non-Bundled Plugins:
  com.github.copilot (1.5.48-243)

Key stack trace snippet from the heap dump:

Root 1:
[   2/100%/  330B] 28.6MB   ROOT: Static field: com.github.copilot.chat.models.ModelService.modelChangeListeners
...
[   2/100%/  330B] 14.7MB   dtListener: com.github.copilot.context.listeners.DragAndDropFileListener
[   2/100%/  330B] 14.7MB * project: com.intellij.openapi.project.impl.ProjectImpl (disposed)

[ThomSMG]

Still an issue.

[prshendra]

I get same issue too, once I found the intellij use around 8 GB of RAM. This cause syntax highlighting to react so slow and linting to be false positive. I'm on Macbook Air M4 and IntelliJ version 2025.2.1. I also had same issue with 2024.x versions too. It sad that the developer ignore our issue.

[KlausJokisuo]

Still an issue. Not sure what triggers it.

[ScopeSV]

Same here. Whenever I ask it something, the ram usage just shoots up. 5-10gb.
Using Jetbrains on a m3 pro.

Not really sure why this post is closed...

[dnck]

The solution might be to drop my subscription contracts with Jetbrains if this persists.

[SergeyKhrystenko]

I get same issue too. I also have an issue with cpu usage. I have Intel® Core™ i7-14700HX and when I even open but nothing doing in window of chat, cpu usage increases to min 25% is stale until chat window is not being closed.
Also syntax check and highlighting stop working when chat window os opened

[SteffanEnnis]

Why is this closed, I had the same issue. Intellij spiked to 55gb of memory after interacting with CoPilot for a planning session

[egorbecker]

I’m experiencing the same issue. It seems like it started after I began using Copilot in “agent” mode.

[mechanical-dance]

same issue. i'm really contemplating switching IDEs after years because of the lack of support and the weird stuff they pulled with the rust plugin

[gengengengengen]

Same issue. After I finish debugging and start up the frontend debugging, I no longer need Copilot and want to free up this RAM.

[radhe-kishan]

Same issue

[minpsn]

same too

[andythehuman42]

I've seen it use over 30Gb of memory when I had multiple large projects open.

[buthmathearo]

Every time I open the android folder from my Flutter project using Android Studio, the copilot-language-server will occupy about 23GB to 24GB of memory on macOS. I have no choice but to disable the Copilot Plugin. After the plugin was disabled, I can open my project normally, and macOS stops showing the Out of Memory Dialog.

[joshuataylor]

All I want is basic completions, not any of the extra stuff, I feel like both the actual plugin and language server need a "light" version, for those that don't want chat etc.

[ricardofiorani]

I think there's a memory leak on the copilot-language-server

[joshuataylor]

that 1gb+ is standard in 2026, unfortunately...

[HaroldAlingGSD]

My copilot process grew to 20+GiB last Friday on Linux.

[nook24]

copilot-language-server is using 5GB+ RAM on my Ubuntu arm64 system. In Ask-Mode the usage is lower.

[abienapsys]

I have the same problem, copilot-language-server is using more than 15GB of RAM when I open IntelliJ on Windows 11.

[gautambjain]

Yes, this issue is long pending. I have disabled it now. Can't let it hijack my system however good it may be.

[abienapsys]

Hi, the issue has been resolved in a release candidate. microsoft/copilot-intellij-feedback#1637 (comment)

[DazzaL]

I tested 1.9.0 final and it's not addressed. Copilot language server spikes to 10gb RSS and terminates the pod which disconnects jetbrains gateway (intellij 2025.3.3)

[codeonym]

It's still there ...

[gautambjain]

Yes the issue is not resolved. I just renamed it so that it doesn't spawn again and again. Using Claude instead.