Godot orphan leaks

In Godot, Node is not RefCounted. This means that nodes will not be freed automatically when they are no longer referenced. You’ll have to manage them explicitly. ¹

Whenever you use duplicate, instantiate, or remove_child, Godot keeps that node loaded in memory even when the script which is holding a reference to the node is deleted. Godot only frees nodes when queue_free or free is called on a node or one of its parents. ¹

You can use print_orphan_nodes() to find out what is being leaked and there is also an orphan count monitor in the Godot debugger. ¹

Footnotes

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