The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Other, Free, or Purgeable. The text presented in the pop-up claims that the computer is low on memory and suggests that the user close some opened applications to free up memory. This pop-up hides another window, and thus the 'Close' button of the first window is also the consent option of the next pop-up. Just click 'Free Memory' button and watch the magic work! In some occasion you may need to run it a few times to shrink inactive memory to minimal. You may want to check out more software for Mac, such as SlimBatteryMonitor, FontNuke or unpkg, which might be similar to MemoryFreer. The Memory Cleaner tab will tell you how much RAM is available on your Mac and how much is currently being used. You can use the Memory Usage or Apps & Processes tabs to see exactly how that memory is being used. When you’re ready to free up your RAM memory, go back to the Memory Cleaner tab and click Clean Memory. Once the cleaning is.

“No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow”, an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions, and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let’s put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.

First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.

Download Declutter Free

“Your system has run out of application memory”

How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating “rainbow wheels” aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You’ll also see many browser applications crashing. You’ll be also thrown warning messages as “Your system has run out of application memory”. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.

How to check RAM usage on Mac

Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you’ve got left.

A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:

Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.

I’ve attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here’s what it all means:

App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can’t be freed up
Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps
Swap used: memory used by macOS
Cached files: memory you can really use

Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but “available memory” your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it’s a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.

How to free up memory on Mac

Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage

Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you’re looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don’t worry, you’re not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.

So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:

1. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups.
2. Click your nickname on the left.
3. Select the Login Items tab.
4. Check programs you don’t want to load as your Mac starts.
5. Press the “–” sign below.

Now, you won’t see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn’t require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here’s how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:

1. Download it for free and go to the Optimization tab.
2. Check Login Items to see the list of apps that get opened when you start your Mac.
3. Click Remove.

As you’ve already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you’ll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.

Tip # 2. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory

The available space on your Mac’s drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you’ve run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.

The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.

What to delete to free up space:

• Large unused files, like movies
• Old downloads
• Rarely used applications
• System junk

But here’s a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X— the app I’ve mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.

Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X

If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see “Your system has run out of application memory” message.

1. Go to the Maintenance tab on the left.
2. Click Free Up RAM.
3. Click Run.

As simple as that!

And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.

Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop

This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it’s cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it’s recommended to keep your Desktop clean.

You don’t have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.

Tip #4. Clear cache files

Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won’t save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.

So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:

1. Open Finder.
2. From the Go menu, select Go to Folder.
3. Type ~/Library/Caches in the field and press Go.
4. In the window that appears, you will see all your cache files.
5. Press Command+A to select all files or delete files one by one.
6. Enter your user name and password to confirm.

If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don’t forget to empty the bin afterward.

Tip # 5. Tune up Chrome’s Task Manager

Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:

The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That’s the proper answer to why Chrome uses so much RAM.

I’ve been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It’s a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.

1. Go to Chrome settings (dotted icon in the top right corner)
2. Click More tools -> Task Manager
   

To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.

Tip # 6. Manage RAM usage with CleanMyMac X menu

CleanMyMac X has another useful and convenient feature for managing your Mac’s performance and memory usage. As you install CleanMyMac X and start it for the first time, it’s icon will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the CleanMyMac X menu. Here you can find updates on the current condition of your Mac and perform quick tweaks to increase your Mac's speed. Whenever you feel like your Mac underperforms, open the CleanMyMac X menu to check how much RAM is available and free it up as well.

Tip # 7. Close Finder windows

Okay, suppose you’re still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you’ll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It’s no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:

Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows

Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.

What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac

I’ve saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.

• Replace AdBlock (very memory-demanding) with a lighter extension
• Keep fewer opened tabs in the browser
• Restart your Mac more often to free up RAM
• Close all hung-up print queues

That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you’re looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to check application memory on Mac?

To check RAM usage on your Mac, go to Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities). In the Memory tab, you will see all the active processes that are using your Mac’s RAM. At the end of the window, there is a Memory Used graph, which indicates how much application memory is used.

How to find out whether your Mac needs more RAM?

Your Mac may be using almost all its RAM, but you don’t need more if it’s using it efficiently. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph shows the current condition of your RAM: green color means your Mac’s using RAM effectively, while yellow is a sign that some application or process is using too much of application memory. The red memory pressure signals that your Mac needs more RAM.

How to quickly free up RAM on your MacBook?

To free up RAM on your Mac, firstly, you should find out what app uses so much of your memory. The memory-heavy programs are listed in Activity Monitor, Memory tab. If there is an app you aren’t using at the moment, click it and press the “X” sign to quit it. This will, in turn, free some of the application memory.

While reading thru some Apple forums, I found a question people asked a lot. While most responses were generally correct, I felt that all answers lacked some important details and as a result confused people even more. The purpose of this article to clarify those details as much as possible.

First, let’s answer the first question from the title of the post.

What is wired memory?

Wired memory on Mac is reserved for the macOS kernel and its data structures, and it cannot be paged out. The normal size of the wired memory is around 2GB. User applications add on average 1MB per instance, and too many running programs can contribute to high wired memory usage.

Now, let’s dive into more technical details.

When the Mac suddenly becomes too slow, the laptop owners start browsing forums and learn to check the memory tab in Activity Monitor.

The screenshot above which I made after rebooting the Mac indicates that my Mac has 8GB of Physical Memory and 2.33GB of it is in the Used Memory bucket. The used memory then consists of App Memory (1.2GB) and Wired Memory (1.13GB).

Why do people ask about Wired memory?

Wired memory is a memory that can’t be compressed or paged out to your startup drives, so it must stay in RAM. Moreover, other processes can’t borrow it.

The key phrase here is “can’t be paged out.”

Before we proceed further let me explain what paging is.

The architecture of modern computers was designed in the 20th century. Any computer has three main parts: processor, RAM (random access memory) and storage (disk, tape, punched cards, etc.).

The processor works directly with RAM because the latter is thousands of times faster than HHD or SSD. Besides the speed, there are two more differences between RAM and HHD:

• RAM needs constant power. When a computer shuts down or restarts, the data in RAM gets wiped. Hard drives preserve data even when the computer is off.
• RAM is much more expensive. For instance, for an additional $200, you can buy either 8GB more RAM or 128GB more SSD when purchasing a new MacBook Pro.

The last point is significant. If RAM was cheap, then Apple would stuff its laptops with tons of memory, and nobody would care to read this article. But since its more expensive than disk storage computer engineers invented memory swapping or paging.

Let me use a whiteboard analogy.
Imagine, you work in a startup company which rents couple desks in a coworking space. Amenities in a coworking environment include unlimited coffee and beer, Wi-Fi, bike storage, and a whiteboard.

When Team A needs to brainstorm the Next Big Thing, they go to the whiteboard and start writing down some ideas. Unfortunately, there is only one whiteboard on the floor. Team B wants to brainstorm their TNBT too, and they also need some whiteboard space.

Team A graciously agrees to share some of the whiteboard space. Then another team comes, and another. With each team, the amount of free space shrinks.

When the available area gets too tight, teams decide to write down some of their ideas on the paper and clear the piece of the whiteboard for new ideas. When they need to access their old ideas, they search thru past papers and copy them to the whiteboard.

Memory management in modern operating systems works similarly. In this case, a whiteboard is a physical memory which is shared by apps (teams). When apps request additional memory, and there is no more free space, the OS checks all memory pages.

The OS tries to find ones that were not used recently and copies them to the disk. Apps do not write down unused memory like in whiteboard example, the OS does. When the app needs back that data, the OS reads it back to RAM from the disk.

In theory, more disk storage the computer has more RAM can be extended by paging. The reverse is also true, in case of little or no free disk space swapping is almost impossible.

This wonderful mechanism, however, has a significant flow: disk is thousands of times slower than RAM. When there is no enough memory, the system keeps paging in and out data continuously, which causes so-called disk thrashing.

In the latter case, the computer, instead of executing programs keeps moving data making the life of a computer user miserable.

So what it has to do with wired memory? Continuing the analogy, imaging the coworking administration decided to block the quarter of the whiteboard and write a schedule of events on it. Plus they disallowed any team to wipe off the schedule.

More space the administration takes less whiteboard space teams can use. More wired memory the macOS uses fewer memory apps can share.

By the way, if you were wondering what represents Cached Files in the first screenshot, it’s a memory that was used by an app which was recently terminated. It’s as if Team A decided to go to a nearby restaurant to grab some lunch.

If by the time they come back, their ideas are still on the whiteboard, they can start from where they left. If not, then they have to copy everything from their papers back to the whiteboard.

Cached Files is a mechanism which macOS uses to speed up the recently closed applications in case if a user wants to start them again. If meantime another app needs more memory, the OS will claim it from Cashed Files.

So, if you see too much Cached Files don’t worry, it’s same as free memory.

If you need proof, try following in Terminal:

• In the Terminal app type sudo purge and hit Enter
• Type in the admin password

When I ran this command, the only thing that has changed in Activity Monitor was Cached Files: its size dropped from 1.89GB to 594MB.

Is it ok to use sudo purge? There is no harm because all it does is clear unused memory. But it also doesn’t do anything valuable. macOS can release unused memory when apps ask for more.

What’s included in the Wired memory?

According to Apple documentation, wired memory is a part of memory reserved for OS kernel and its data structures. Following kernel objects belong to the wired memory: Virtual Memory objects, virtual memory and I/O buffer caches, various drivers.

User applications do not directly work with the hardware; they send requests to kernel drivers and those, in turn, perform hardware operations. For instance, the internet browser does not send pixels to the MacBook screen. Instead, it sends requests to the video driver, which then changes colors of pixels on the screen.

However, user apps can also influence how much of wired memory is used, although indirectly.

Following is a table with some (not all) types of objects user apps indirectly create in the wired memory. Note that the data in the table is outdated, but it at least gives some idea why the wired memory changes every time we load or unload an app.

Let me explain some of the objects in the table on the example of the Google Chrome browser. When I first started Chrome, it created several processes: one Google Chrome and 8 Google Chrome Helpers. The wired memory immediately jumped to 1.35GB.

Each line in the Activity Monitor is a process: an application instance. Each process is a collection of threads and threads perform actual work on the computer. If data in Table 1 was current, we could count that Google Chrome process added 16KB to store process data, plus 46 * 21KB = 966KB for threads.

Chrome is an interesting app. Every time you open a new tab, it starts additional helpers. Each helper is a separate process, and each process spawns numerous threads.

When I opened one tab, the number of Chrome helpers jumped from 8 to 16. After opening a second tab the number of helpers increased to 24, and after third to 26. After opening three tabs, the wired memory size increased to 1.61GB.

As you can see each process indirectly increases wired memory because macOS has to record those threads somewhere.

And this is not all. While Apple claims that wired memory is reserved for kernel and some objects which describe user processes, some applications can tap into the wired memory directly.

For instance, if you ever used virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop or VMWare, you should know that they use the wired memory directly to improve the performance.

If you think about this, it makes perfect sense. Virtual frameworks are designed to act like real machines so that OS running inside can handle the memory the way they always do. For instance, if you run macOS virtual machine on Mac, the macOS will create its version of wired memory inside VM.

After digging a bit in the Kernel Programming Guide, I found that applications can allocate memory in the kernel by calling kmem_alloc_wired function instead of regular alloc.

Now, what all of this means in practice?

How to free up memory on Mac

Free Memory Macbook Air

There are two main reasons for the high usage of wired memory:

1) Some applications modify the kernel and use wired memory deliberately. Examples are drivers and applications working on the kernel level such as antiviruses, or virtual machines. If for instance, there are some widgets in the Mission control, turn off those you don’t need.

In the case of virtual machines, the remedy is to limit the memory configuration. For example, if the Windows VM is configured to use 8GB of RAM lower it to 4GB.

2) When too many applications are active, they still use RAM. Unlike Windows, where clicking on close button unloads the app, in macOS, the app continues staying in memory. You can tell them by a little dot under the icon in the Dock.

Use Command and Q key combination to quit the app altogether. If some apps still stay in the memory rebooting the computer sometimes can fix the problem.

Macbook Memory Upgrade

And finally, high wired memory usage is not always a sign of a problem. In the following example used memory was almost 31GB on a 32GB Mac, and wired memory accounted for the bulk of used (26.61GB).

Free Memory Mac

However, look at the left side of the screenshot: Memory Pressure. Memory Pressure section in Activity Monitor can have one of 3 colors like a traffic light: green, yellow, and red. If memory pressure color is red, then more RAM is needed. In case if it’s green, then there is enough memory for the current load.

Free Memory Mac Terminal

Wired memory does not get released immediately when an application quits. It gets cleared by a garbage collection process which may take some time, and during this time the wired memory size may be too high.

Resources:

Free Memory Mac

Image credit: Flikr