Is your Mac running painfully slowly? Has an awarding only hung? Did you see a "Your arrangement has run out of application memory" message or the dreaded spinning beach ball? All of these tin can be signs that your retentiveness, or RAM, is being used to the max. Read on to find out how to articulate the RAM on your Mac and various helpful tips to help you make clean or optimise your Mac memory, including what to practice if your Mac RAM is always full.

What is RAM?

First a quick primer. RAM stands for Random Access Memory and it provides storage for ongoing tasks and processes. The difference between the RAM and the rest of the storage on your Mac is that it's faster, therefore your Mac is designed to keep sure things in RAM in order to speed things up.

Most Macs ship with 8GB RAM - it'southward been a long time since Apple shipped Macs with 4GB RAM or less. 8GB RAM should be enough if you don't run memory hungry applications and games, just fifty-fifty the almost average user tin can come upward against RAM issues due to retentiveness hogging processes associated with badly designed web pages and apps. We besides have a split up article all near how to tell how much RAM is in your Mac .

Practice I demand more than RAM?

If your Mac is using the majority of the RAM available y'all may experience problems such as:

  • Performance issues
  • Spinning embankment ball
  • "Your organisation has run out of application memory" message
  • Lag when typing
  • United nations-responsive apps and apps freezing or crashing
  • Taking ages to load apps or web pages

If these are issues you are encountering so you might exist thinking that yous need more RAM in your Mac.

If you lot have an former Mac and it is possible to upgrade the RAM this might be the solution yous need, just nosotros suspect that the RAM in the majority of our readers' Macs can't really be updated.

Even if it is possible to add together more RAM to your Mac there might be a much simpler solution, so we'd suggest that you endeavour some of the tips below earlier rushing out and ownership more RAM.

Of course if it's more RAM you want, and y'all tin add more than RAM to your Mac, and so read How to upgrade the RAM in a Mac.

Add RAM Mac

Can I add more RAM?

Unfortunately it's hard to upgrade RAM in a Mac - and nigh on impossible with the advent of the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max Mac.

The RAM that Apple puts on its home made organization on fleck isn't RAM in the traditional sense. Apple calls it Unified Memory and it's build on to the chip with the CPU and GPU cores. This is good because both the CPU and GPU can access the memory directly, and share information technology, just information technology does mean that replacing it isn't possible.

But you lot shouldn't demand to add more than retention (although if yous really want to futurity proof your Mac it would exist wise to cull the maximum amount of RAM when you purchase your Mac!)

Apple explains that the memory in these M1-powered Macs is unlike to the traditional memory. It is office of the M1 architecture - which means you tin can't replace it, only as well ways that it works much more than efficiently and you should meet speed benefits.

Essentially the memory is accessible to the CPU and GPU and can be allocated where it is required when it is required. In that location should be no operation hit when memory is relocated because the data doesn't need to be moved over, its instantly accessible.

This should hateful that 8GB RAM in a M1 Mac isn't the aforementioned as 8GB RAM in an Intel Mac. But we nevertheless advise that yous become the maximum amount of RAM y'all can afford when you lot buy a new Mac - y'all can do so as a build to order choice at bespeak of buy. These days you can usually opt for 16GB RAM for most £200/$200 more.

But you shouldn't actually need 16GB or more RAM unless you use actually power hungry apps. For normal use 8GB really should be enough.

iMac 24in

How to articulate retentiveness on a Mac

If installing more RAM isn't an option - or you want to attempt to fix the problem start - what tin can you practise to address your Mac RAM problem?

One option is to utilise an app to clear your Mac's RAM. We discuss a number of these options towards the end of this article. If y'all'd prefer to bound to that section click here: Best apps to articulate Mac RAM.

Even so, before you lot install more than RAM, or resort to downloading an app, there are a number of things y'all tin exercise that might free up your RAM and prepare your Mac's memory bug.

1. Restart your Mac

Restarting your reckoner is the simplest way to free upward RAM. There'southward a reason why the Information technology desk e'er tells you to "plow it off and on again!" Most of the fourth dimension that will solve your problem.

When your Mac restarts it will empty the RAM and any disk cashes, so when information technology starts upwardly once again you should find that things run smoother.

However, restarting your Mac may not be convenient. Perhaps your system has hung and y'all are afraid of losing unsaved information, mayhap and the idea of closing and reopening umpteen apps doesn't appeal, or perhaps you are in the middle of something that yous don't want to interrupt (even if that is the procedure that is stealing all the RAM).

If you don't want to restart your Mac what can you practise to free upwardly RAM? Read on…

2. Update macOS

Because it'southward possible that your problem is related to a known outcome with macOS, it'south e'er worth checking to see if y'all are running the almost up to date version of the Os, and updating it if necessary.

Apple ofttimes issues updates that have issues fixes and that might just solve your problem.

We encompass how to update the operating system software on your Mac
separately.

iii. Check Activeness Monitor

Our showtime port of call when our Mac slows down or an app freezes is to check Action Monitor. Activity Monitor is an app that comes with your Mac. You can find information technology in Utilities, or merely start typing Activeness Monitor into Spotlight (press Command + Space to bring upwards a Spotlight window).

Action Monitor will evidence yous how much retention is being used and will aid you lot place if a particular app is using up more than its fair share of resource.

Y'all'll be able to see how your memory is existence used in the Activity Monitor window. Yous'll see details about each process and app, such as the amount of memory, how many threads, and so on. You can as well run across extra columns such as Energy Impact (handy if you are on bombardment ability) by right clicking on one of the cavalcade headers.

If you select the Retention tab, as well as details about how much memory each procedure is taking up, you'll see a graph for Retentiveness Pressure level, and information about Physical Retention, Memory Used, Cached Files, Swap Used. Next to that is a section for App Retention, Wired Retention, and Compressed.

Activity Monitor RAM

As for what that all means, App Memory is what's actually being used by apps and processes, Wired memory is what'south been reserved for apps and can't be freed up, and Compressed is inactive memory that can't be used by other apps. That will all add up to the Memory Used figure.

The Cached Files effigy represents the unassigned memory that is bachelor to you. (If you are wondering what Swap Used is, it's the memory beingness used by macOS, so it's already deemed for in the Memory Used calculation).

In the Memory Pressure level section y'all will see a graph that gives an overview of how much pressure level your organization is under. Ideally the graph will be green, but if you are short of retentiveness it volition be yellow, or worse, cherry-red. It is possible that the graph will exist red even if it looks like you have lots of memory available, then information technology can be a good indication of problems.

How to employ Activity Monitor to costless upwards RAM

  1. Open Activity Monitor.
  2. Click on the Memory tab.
  3. Click the Memory column to sort processes by Retention usage. This volition make it easier to see which procedure or app is hogging the RAM.
  4. When you accept identified a suspect app, select it and click on Data (i) in the bill of fare. This will give you some data about what is happening, including the memory being used by that detail process. If you want to quict the app in this window you tin can just click on Quit.
  5. After clicking Quit you lot will see a message asking if you are sure you want to quit this procedure. You tin Quit, Forcefulness Quit or Cancel. Force Quit could be useful if the app has frozen. Quit app from Activity Monitor
  6. Alternatively you can shut down a process easily by selecting it in Activity Monitor so clicking on the X which volition force a procedure to quit. This doesn't necessarily close the app. If it'south a web folio causing problems rather than quit your browser it volition just shut and reload that page. But if y'all were to quit a Photoshop process the application itself will shut (and you'll probably see a 'closed unexpectedly' warning. Quit in Activity Monitor

Note: You shouldn't close a procedure if you don't know what it is as it may be required by your Mac.

4. Shut suspect applications

If you glanced at Activity Monitor and noticed that certain apps appeared to be hogging resource fifty-fifty though you lot weren't using them - maybe you didn't even realise they were running, you may benefit from closing them down.

Even if you don't wait in Action Monitor, a quick glance at your Dock could identify a few running apps that you could quit, thereby freeing up some resources. If you look at the Dock y'all'll notice that some apps accept a dot below their icon - these apps are open.

Dock Open Apps

How to shut an application

  1. Right-click or control click on the app icon in the Dock.
  2. Click on Quit.

Quit open apps

5. Cheque CPU usage

In terms of suspect apps, it's not always but the RAM that's being hogged by an app. Sometimes an app might exist using a lot of processing power, which could take the consequence of slowing things down.

How to bank check CPU usage in Activity Monitor

  1. Open Activeness Monitor.
  2. Click on the CPU tab.
  3. Sort the processes past %CPU by clicking on that column header.
  4. Look for abnormal usage - if an app or procedure is using a high pct of CPU it'southward probably what is causing the issues.
  5. To quit that app or process select it and click on the (ten) in the carte du jour.

Possibly a kernel_task is running in the background and taking up a lot of the resources. If that is the case you lot won't be able to kill that process - this is because a kernel_task represents a collection of operating system processes. The simply way to stop a kernel_task is to restart your Mac. However, it may be that the troublesome Kernel_Task is related to a hardware result which needs addressing, and until you exercise you lot may go along seeing this reoccurring problem. In which case, you might want to run an Apple Hardware Examination every bit described here.

6. Check the printer

Take you lot sent annihilation to print recently? It's possible that a big print job is queued up and that has caused your Mac to hang.

vii. Purge RAM in Terminal

Nosotros don't recommend this unless yous are an advanced user, just you lot could try opening Terminal and typing in: sudo purge. And then enter password and expect while inactive memory is cleared.

How to reduce RAM usage on a Mac

Higher up y'all will find the fixes for when your Mac is running out of memory, but how do you stop that happening in the first identify?

If you are struggling considering your Mac doesn't take a lot of RAM then in that location are a few things y'all tin can do to maximise what is bachelor. This may likewise help speed up your Mac.

1. Tidy up your Desktop

If your Desktop is cluttered with documents, images, screenshots and the like, it'southward worth tiding information technology upwardly - or at least dragging everything into a folder. This is considering macOS treats every icon on your Desktop every bit if information technology'south an agile window, therefore the more icons you lot take littered around your Desktop the more retentiveness will be used.  Unfortunately nigh things get saved to the Desktop automatically so it really volition be a case of doing a bit of a clear up from time to fourth dimension.

2. Set up the Finder

When you open a Finder window what do you normally run across? If yous see Recents (in older versions of macOS: All My Files) then it's worth irresolute this as all the information about the location of the files shown in that view will be stored in RAM.

How to change what the Finder opens on

  1. Open Finder and click on Finder > Preferences.
  2. Under General choose a folder to be shown when you open a new Finder window.
  3. Once yous've inverse this destination you may need to Relaunch the Finder in older versions of macOS. To do this correct-click on the Finder icon in the Dock while holding Option/Alt push and cull Relaunch.

Change what Finder shows

3. Close or merge Finder windows

Another Finder related tip. As each Finder window can take an affect on RAM usage, either close Finder windows that you aren't using, or merge all the Finder windows together.

In the Finder, click on Window > Merge All Windows.

iv. Stop apps starting up automatically

Speaking of apps that might be running in the background and using up resources, do you have apps that seem to exist running fifty-fifty though you never opened them? It is possible that you have items in your first up menu, which means that they will open automatically when you start your Mac.

Luckily it is easy to stop some apps from automatically starting up whenever you plow on your Mac.

How to cease apps starting automatically

  1. Open System Preferences.
  2. Click on Users & Groups.
  3. Click on your User name on the sidebar on the left if that's not already selected.
  4. Click on Login Items.
  5. Here you may see a drove of applications that will open up up every time yous starting time your Mac.
  6. If yous don't need them to always exist running, select an app in the list and click on the (-) button.

v. Close web browser tabs

Websites tin exist a real memory hog. In contempo versions of macOS you will encounter websites open in Safari listed as separate processes in Activity Monitor, so take a look in that location to run into if there are any memory hogs open on you Mac and shut them.

It'south skilful practise not to have multiple web browser tabs open. Close Safari (or whichever browser you use) from time to time, or at least close the extra tabs that are open - you can do this easily.

How to close open browser tabs

Our favoured way to shut open up browser tabs in Safari is to:

  1. Right click on a tab we want to remain open up.
  2. Choose Close Other Tabs if you want to shut all the other open tabs.
  3. Alternatively chose Shut Tabs to the correct if you want to close those to the correct.

If, like us, you accept a lot of Pinned tabs in Safari these can also be hogging memory. While these tabs shouldn't be live all the fourth dimension, one time y'all have clicked on one it will be kicked into action and may become a groundwork retention grunter, so check in Activity Monitor to see if they are. You will be able to close the process there.

How to close websites in Activity Monitor

  1. Open Activity Monitor.
  2. Click on the Memory tab.
  3. Click on the memory hogging website - you will see an X appear in the card.
  4. Click on the X.
  5. Ostend that y'all want to Quit the process.

Quit Website Process

6. Delete browser extensions

If y'all accept installed web browser extensions it may exist the instance that ane of them is the RAM guzzling culprit.

How to remove a browser extension from Safari

  1. Open Safari and click on Safari > Preferences in the menu.
  2. Click on the extensions tab.
  3. Choose the extension you lot want to uninstall.
  4. Click Uninstall.

Uninstall Extensions

vii. Make sure you have lots of free disk space

If you are running out of RAM your Mac's bulldoze tin can be used as virtual memory - so free up some storage space if you are running out of RAM. The recommendation is to keep 20% of your drive space gratuitous.

You could delete large unused files, old downloads, and old apps. Follow our communication about freeing up storage space on a Mac.

Best apps to clear Mac RAM

Some other option is to download a third-party app that promises to optimise your RAM - nosotros wait at some such programs below.

It should exist noted that, in general, macOS is capable of managing memory efficiently and deals with logs and cashes and the like itself, so you lot shouldn't actually need a third party app to do that for you.

Yet, if your Mac doesn't have as much RAM every bit y'all'd like, then a tertiary political party app may turn out to exist cheaper and less hassle than attempting to add together more RAM yourself. If it's a frequent problem you lot are encountering then it may well be worth looking at those options.

Hither are a few of apps that you could attempt:

Parallels Toolbox

You probably know Parallels equally the company backside Parallels Desktop, the virtual auto software for running Windows on the Mac, but they likewise make Toolbox, a drove of handy tools that make information technology actually easy to do various things you might want to do on a Mac (Toolbox came about becasue Parallels' Help Desk would field calls from Windows users wondering how to do practice things on a Mac and they decided to simplify the processes).

There are more 30 tools included in Parallels Toolbox and 1 of them is a handy Free Retentivity tool.

The benefit of Parallels Toolbox is that y'all also get loads of other handy tools such every bit Find Duplicates so you lot can delete things you don't need and free upwards space, an like shooting fish in a barrel mode to take screenshots and record video, and loads more.

When we ran the Free Retentivity tool we regained more than 1GB memory. There's a free trial available here, or it costs £fifteen.99 a yr.

CleanMyMac X, MacPaw

With CleanMyMac 10 installed on your organization yous will get a Heavy memory usage warning if your Mac is running out of free RAM. Just click on the Costless Up button to release some of the RAM and speed things upwards.

CleanMyMac X RAM

With CleanMyMac X installed yous volition see an icon in the carte bar, which you tin click to get admission to diverse tools and clear your RAM there, amidst other things.

CleanMyMac

Click on Free Up in the memory section and the software will start to costless upward your RAM.

In that location are also options for freeing upward storage space.

Y'all tin can download CleanMyMac Ten for costless, only some of the features require you to pay to unlock the full version. CleanMyMac costs £29.95/$39.95, you can download it here.

Retentivity Clean 2, Fliplab

This will purge your Mac's inactive memory - something you might want to do after endmost a particularly intensive app or game. Some features are available via the free app but there is an in-app purchase to gain more tools. When we ran it is freed up about 1GB. Download it here.