In fact, MacOS received major memory updates in Mavericks and Yosemite that adjusted the way memory is allocated to help make RAM use more efficient. It’s an indicator of potential issues, but some swap memory usage is not uncommon. However, swap used doesn’t always mean something is wrong. It tends to become higher if you have a lot of apps or tabs open at once or are trying to manage other complex processes. Swap memory is more likely to be used when your current memory isn’t enough to efficiently handle all the tasks you are trying to do on MacOS. Traditionally, swap used has a bad reputation since it can indicate RAM problems. The operating system does this by borrowing some space from somewhere else - the startup disk, in this case - and using it to temporarily store some data while the RAM is busy handling other tasks. If I’ve missed your favorite utility or you have other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.Swap memory is a type of memory that computers use to offload demands on the current RAM. Typically, I will run for multiple days and I tend to reboot my Mac whenever I notice that my swap space is over a quarter or so of my RAM.Īside from the Activity Monitor, there are some great third-party utilities like iStat Menus, Sensei Monitor, Stats, and iPulse that give you this information, and more. That’s just from time and a lack of perfect cleanup as you run without rebooting. ![]() That swap space will grow over time between startups. I’ve got 32 GB of RAM, so I like to make sure I’ve kept 64 GB free on my SSD. There is a rule of thumb/tip about Swap Space: You should keep double the amount of physical memory on your storage free for your system to work well. Why did it feel so fast? Because it would swap in and out of its SSD, making it feel like it had much more RAM. When the MacBook Air debuted, it only had 4 GB of RAM. And what happens when you switch back to that application? It swaps those memory sections back, paging it back in. The term for that is “swap.” You’re swapping elements in your RAM and paging them out to your storage. When your Mac runs out of RAM, it starts to push sections in RAM to your storage. When I’m running intensive applications, like After Effects or DaVinci Resolve, I keep the activity monitor open just to keep an eye on the system’s memory usage. Your memory pressure may momentarily be in the red, but if it happens often, it’s time to buy more RAM or upgrade your system. If it’s red, there’s just not enough RAM. If it’s yellow, your Mac is stressed, and you should start quitting some applications. Generally speaking, if it’s green, you’re good. It’s a summary of how much of your RAM is being used. Some applications, like Google Chrome, run multiple processes (Chrome has a process for each window).įor RAM, we need to focus on the block at the bottom. ![]() Notice, I said process there and not an application. The list shows how much RAM each process is using. ![]() In the Memory section, you should sort by Memory. Most often you click on “% CPU” to see what is working hardest. Every five seconds, it changes as different processes have different needs. Click on the Finder icon in your dock and press Command-Shift-U to go there directly.Īctivity Monitor shows all the live processes on your Mac. This app is in the Utilities folder inside of your Applications folder. This information is found in the Activity Monitor application, specifically the “Memory” tab.
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