Windows 11’s built-in Weather app is supposed to be one of the simplest utilities on the operating system. You open it, check the temperature, look at the forecast and close it.
But recent testing suggests Microsoft’s Weather experience can be surprisingly demanding on system memory.
The app has reportedly crossed 1.2GB of RAM usage during testing, despite primarily being used for basic weather information such as forecasts, maps and conditions.
That is particularly notable when compared with Apple’s Weather app on macOS, which reportedly uses around 247MB of RAM in a similar test.
In other words, the Windows 11 Weather app can consume roughly five times as much memory as its macOS counterpart.
Windows 11 Weather can use more than 1.2GB of RAM
For a full desktop application, using more than 1GB of RAM isn’t necessarily unusual. Modern browsers, creative applications and games can consume several gigabytes without raising many eyebrows.
The problem is that Weather is a relatively lightweight utility.
According to the reported testing, Windows 11’s Weather app can push memory consumption beyond 1.2GB while running.
The comparison with macOS makes the difference even more striking:
| Weather app | Reported RAM usage |
|---|---|
| Windows 11 Weather | 1.2GB+ |
| macOS Weather | ~247MB |
| Approximate difference | 5× |
These figures shouldn’t be treated as a universal measurement for every PC. Memory usage can change depending on the Windows build, app version, system configuration, loaded content and what else is running in the background.
Still, the numbers highlight a genuine question about how much overhead Microsoft’s Weather experience carries.
Why is Windows Weather so memory-hungry?
A major reason is the way Microsoft’s Weather experience is built.
Rather than being a completely traditional lightweight native Windows application, the experience relies heavily on Microsoft Edge WebView2 to deliver MSN-based web content.
WebView2 essentially allows applications to embed web technologies inside a Windows program. It uses Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge engine to render that content.
That approach has some obvious advantages for Microsoft.
Web content can be updated independently, developers can reuse existing web technologies, and Microsoft can deliver a richer interface without building every component from scratch as a traditional Windows UI.
The downside is that you’re effectively bringing parts of a web browser into an application that many users expect to be extremely lightweight.
Multiple Chromium processes add to the overhead
When the Weather app loads its web-based experience, it isn’t necessarily just one simple process sitting in memory.
WebView2 can involve multiple processes associated with the Chromium-based rendering environment.
The Weather experience may also load:
- Weather forecasts and dynamic data
- Interactive maps
- Images and other media
- JavaScript and web scripts
- MSN content
- Advertising and sponsored content
- Additional background processes
Each component can contribute to the overall resource footprint.
That helps explain why an apparently simple Weather app can end up consuming considerably more memory than users might expect.
The ads make the situation more frustrating
There is another reason the reported numbers have attracted attention: the Windows Weather experience also displays advertising and sponsored content.
For many users, there’s something inherently frustrating about a basic utility consuming a significant amount of RAM while also serving ads.
That doesn’t mean advertisements are solely responsible for the reported 1.2GB memory usage. There isn’t enough evidence to make that claim.
Instead, the issue is the combination of a web-powered architecture, Chromium processes, dynamic content and advertising all being part of an application that traditionally would have been considered a lightweight system utility.
On an 8GB PC, 1.2GB is a big chunk of memory
The impact becomes easier to understand when looking at machines with limited RAM.
A PC with 8GB of RAM has considerably less headroom than a modern system with 16GB or 32GB.
If the Weather app consumes around 1.2GB, that’s approximately 15% of the system’s total 8GB memory capacity.
Once Windows itself, a browser, antivirus software and other background applications are added to the equation, available memory can disappear surprisingly quickly.
For someone running Chrome or Edge with dozens of tabs, the difference could become more noticeable.
That doesn’t mean the Weather app alone will make an 8GB PC unusable. Windows manages memory dynamically and can reclaim resources when necessary.
But it does raise the question of whether a basic weather utility really needs such a large memory footprint.
macOS Weather provides an interesting comparison
Apple’s Weather app makes the contrast particularly obvious.
In the cited testing, macOS Weather reportedly stayed around 247MB of RAM, compared with more than 1.2GB for Windows 11 Weather.
That’s not a perfectly controlled comparison because Windows and macOS use different architectures, frameworks and memory-management systems.
Nevertheless, the difference is large enough to be interesting.
If one weather application can deliver forecasts and maps while using a few hundred megabytes, users may reasonably wonder why another requires more than a gigabyte.
Why Microsoft uses WebView2 in the first place
It’s worth looking at the other side of the argument.
WebView2 isn’t inherently a bad technology.
For Microsoft and developers, it provides a practical way to integrate modern web experiences into Windows applications. Developers can use familiar web technologies and Microsoft can update content and functionality without rebuilding an entire native application.
This is particularly useful for services that depend heavily on online content.
The trade-off is resource consumption.
The more a Windows application behaves like a web application, the more likely it is to inherit some of the resource requirements associated with modern browsers.
Windows users have encountered similar complaints with other applications and services that rely heavily on embedded web technologies.
Microsoft is reportedly working on low-memory optimizations
The situation may eventually improve.
Microsoft is reportedly planning additional low-memory optimizations, with improvements expected toward the latter part of 2026.
If those changes make it into the Weather experience as expected, users on systems with 8GB of RAM could see a more efficient application.
The goal would be fairly straightforward: keep the modern Weather interface while reducing the amount of memory required to deliver it.
Until those optimizations arrive, however, users looking for a lightweight weather experience may continue turning to third-party alternatives.
Should you uninstall Windows Weather?
For most people, there’s no urgent reason to do so.
If your PC has 16GB or more of RAM and you rarely leave the Weather app open, its memory usage may not have a meaningful impact on everyday performance.
The situation is different for older or lower-memory machines.
On an 8GB Windows 11 PC, every unnecessary background process matters more. If the Weather app is consistently consuming a large amount of memory, replacing it with a lighter alternative could make sense.
You can also simply avoid leaving the full Weather application running and use other ways of checking forecasts.
A weather app shouldn’t need to behave like a browser
The bigger story here isn’t really about one app using 1.2GB of RAM.
It’s about the growing tension between web-based application development and desktop efficiency.
Web technologies allow companies to build richer and more easily updated experiences, but they can also introduce significant overhead.
For something as simple as checking tomorrow’s weather, users may reasonably expect an application that opens quickly, uses little memory and gets out of the way when they’re finished.
Windows 11’s Weather experience appears to take a different approach.
With WebView2, Chromium processes, dynamic MSN content, maps and advertising all involved, the app has much more going on under the hood than its simple purpose might suggest.
If Microsoft’s upcoming low-memory optimizations deliver meaningful improvements, the issue could become less significant.
Until then, the reported 1.2GB-plus RAM usage is a striking reminder that sometimes even the simplest Windows utilities can have surprisingly large footprints.
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