How Does Chrome Prioritize Image Requests?
April 3, 2025
In this article, we’ll explore how Chrome determines the request priority for images. We will explain how prioritization works and what optimization techniques you can use to ensure important images load faster.
Image requests are low-priority by default
By default, image requests are Low priority. The browser will instead prioritize requests that are render-blocking or part of the critical request chain.In this request waterfall we can see several low-priority image requests.
Source: How Does Chrome Prioritize Image Requests? | DebugBear
Modern web pages will typically include links to dozens of resources or more–images, JS, CSS, and god knows what. http now enables numerous simultaneous requests, But how do browser prioritise these?
Here Conor McCarthy looks at how Chrome prioritises image loading.
