High Memory Usage on new Mac Mini

[techno96]

I just got my M1 mac mini 16gb in today, and the first thing I noticed was this. With absolutely no apps open besides activity monitor, I am constantly hovering around 6gb of app memory used. How is app memory in use with nothing open?

I installed iStat Menus and it shows basically the same. This amount of memory usage feels odd to me on a new system, and this is after waiting a few hours in case any background tasks were doing things.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why. My i7 MacBook pro also running Big Sur 11.2 isn't using nearly this much and is next to nothing with no apps open.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mike Boreham]

macOS will make use of unused memory. Memory used is not important. If you had 32GB of memory it might show 20GB being used.

What matters is Memory Pressure, as long as this is normally green you don't need more memory. Here is my 16GB M1 MBA not doing anything:

 

[Quackers]

I just got my M1 mac mini 16gb in today, and the first thing I noticed was this. With absolutely no apps open besides activity monitor, I am constantly hovering around 6gb of app memory used. How is app memory in use with nothing open?

I installed iStat Menus and it shows basically the same. This amount of memory usage feels odd to me on a new system, and this is after waiting a few hours in case any background tasks were doing things.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why. My i7 MacBook pro also running Big Sur 11.2 isn't using nearly this much and is next to nothing with no apps open.

Any suggestions?

View attachment 1725834

You aren't "using" 7.8GB of ram, as such.
6.6GB of it are cached and can be released for use at the drop of a hat. This caching is to make the apps open faster next time they're used. It's advantageous to have this.
Nothing to worry about.

 

[leman]

I just got my M1 mac mini 16gb in today, and the first thing I noticed was this. With absolutely no apps open besides activity monitor, I am constantly hovering around 6gb of app memory used. How is app memory in use with nothing open?

I installed iStat Menus and it shows basically the same. This amount of memory usage feels odd to me on a new system, and this is after waiting a few hours in case any background tasks were doing things.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why. My i7 MacBook pro also running Big Sur 11.2 isn't using nearly this much and is next to nothing with no apps open.

Any suggestions?

View attachment 1725834

You can use per process memory tab to see what is using RAM. But frankly, this is an exercise in futility. The only metric you should care about as an end user is memory pressure. As long as it’s green, you are fine, no matter what the RAM usage statistics show.

 

[Never mind]

This is one of the most asked questions about memory. There should be a sticky about this so users don’t get upset and post this question.

 

[techno96]

This is one of the most asked questions about memory. There should be a sticky about this so users don’t get upset and post this question.

I searched beforehand, I agree its generally asked, but I don't see how a fresh install should be using this much RAM, specifically under app memory, when I have no apps open.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I searched beforehand, I agree its generally asked, but I don't see how a fresh install should be using this much RAM, specifically under app memory, when I have no apps open.

Are you new to Macs (coming from Windows)?

 

[techno96]

Are you new to Macs (coming from Windows)?

No, I very clearly stated that this doesn't happen on my MBP also running 11.2

 

[techno96]

My issue here is how there could be 4gb of app memory in use with the most intensive process using 255mb, there is no way this adds up to 4gb.

 

[Mike Boreham]

No, I very clearly stated that this doesn't happen on my MBP also running 11.2

My 2017 iMac shows similar behaviour to my M1 MacBook Air:

I can't give you a technical answer to your question about why. MacOS memory usage and management is very complex, which is why Apple introduced Memory Pressure, as a User indication of memory sufficiency.

 

[chabig]

I don't see how a fresh install should be using this much RAM...

That's ok. I assume you're not an operating system engineer. The operating system manages memory. It will use what it uses. You should not concern yourself with it. Unless your machine is exhibiting symptoms of a problem, like slow operation or applications closing due to lack of memory, just use the machine normally.

 

[mi7chy]

Mine is lower at 3.3GB memory used on clean boot but still relatively high compared to Linux that's usually <=1GB or Windows 10 at ~2GB. Need a debloat script for MacOS.

 

[Zazoh]

Ironically fresh out of the box post setup, is intensive on memory and cpu.

Cloud syncing
Photo indexing
Spotlight Search indexing

Others have explained memory pressure, on an M1 Air, my graph normally shows 2gb but good portion of memory being used with little to no swap.

With 16 gb, you have double the headroom before swap kicks in. With zoom calls, VMWare Horizon running Windows at my corporate job, and programming, I don’t use the full 8, so factor in from there.

If you are making and exporting 4K videos, you’ll use it.

 

[alpez]

I just got my M1 mac mini 16gb in today, and the first thing I noticed was this. With absolutely no apps open besides activity monitor, I am constantly hovering around 6gb of app memory used. How is app memory in use with nothing open?

I installed iStat Menus and it shows basically the same. This amount of memory usage feels odd to me on a new system, and this is after waiting a few hours in case any background tasks were doing things.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why. My i7 MacBook pro also running Big Sur 11.2 isn't using nearly this much and is next to nothing with no apps open.

Any suggestions?

View attachment 1725834

Risc code is bigger than cisc ... but not that much as in your examples.