Tricks to save memory? (for 8GB models)

[VitoBotta]

I have said in other threads about some issues with high memory pressure that happens when I keep several things open at the same time.

Things have improved since I stopped using some electron apps that I was using for web apps that I need all the time, and am now just using them in Safari. I also installed the tab suspender extension for Safari which suspends tabs while not in use to save memory. These already seem to make quite a difference. Besides keeping fewer things open at the same time, are there any other tricks or optimizations at OS level or something that can be done to further reduce memory usage? I am just trying to avoid having to replace this 8GB Mac mini with a 16GB money (at a loss) without crippling my user experience. Thanks.

 

[JohnnyGo]

You’re on the right path.

- Safari only
- Avoiding eletron apps
- managing your open tabs

I have free memory apps for my Intel MBP. Don’t know if they have an M1 version.

They clean up my memory at preset levels.

Have used 8Gb for the last 10 years (different MacBooks) and it works most of the time.

Unfortunately Mail/Word/Excel are not light on memory so I have the same worry as you.

 

[MrEcted]

What issues are you encountering? I'm using an 8GB M1 Mini and I can run very complex Logic Pro projects while doing many other tasks and I haven't encountered any issues yet.

 

[Natzoo]

I heard chrome runs better on M1 than safari, how true is that? I’m on Mojave at least and safari runs horribly on my 2018 15’

 

[VitoBotta]

You’re on the right path.

- Safari only
- Avoiding eletron apps
- managing your open tabs

I have free memory apps for my Intel MBP. Don’t know if they have an M1 version.

They clean up my memory at preset levels.

Have used 8Gb for the last 10 years (different MacBooks) and it works most of the time.

Unfortunately Mail/Word/Excel are not light on memory so I have the same worry as you.

Can you give me an example of those apps you mention?

What issues are you encountering? I'm using an 8GB M1 Mini and I can run very complex Logic Pro projects while doing many other tasks and I haven't encountered any issues yet.

High memory pressure. Now like I said it's happening less frequently so I will perhaps keep the 8GB. I know that other people too have stress tested the 8GB with Logic Pro, Final Cut etc but perhaps it depends on the apps you use. I don't really do video editing but I keep many things open for development and other stuff, and it seems that this combination uses quite a bit of memory.

I heard chrome runs better on M1 than safari, how true is that? I’m on Mojave at least and safari runs horribly on my 2018 15’

I have Chrome M1 installed and have tried it a bit. I didn't really see a big difference in memory usage from looking at Activity Monitor, but somehow I think that using always Safari has anyway helped reduce overall memory usage. Boh. I am using Chrome only when I need the dev tools since I am not used to Safari's.

 

[MrEcted]

High memory pressure. Now like I said it's happening less frequently so I will perhaps keep the 8GB. I know that other people too have stress tested the 8GB with Logic Pro, Final Cut etc but perhaps it depends on the apps you use. I don't really do video editing but I keep many things open for development and other stuff, and it seems that this combination uses quite a bit of memory.

I guess I just don't really care about memory pressure. Modern SSDs are incredibly fast. Sure they're orders of magnitude slower than RAM but still fast enough to where I don't really see a perceptible difference.

I don't worry about paging because modern SSDs can handle LOADS of write cycles before memory cells degrade. I'll upgrade my computer way before I see my SSD start to fail due to too many write cycles. A modern SSD could probably handle at least a decade's worth of heavy paging.

 

[JohnnyGo]

There are a couple of apps but also some terminal commands to clean memory space.

The one I use is

Memory Clean 3 for Mac - FIPLAB

Memory Clean 3 is the most popular app for optimizing your Mac's memory and is best used after you have finished using a memory (RAM) intensive app or game.

fiplab.com

Keep an eye on maintenance apps that in their routines also clean up memory (particularly good for headless Macs).

 

[VitoBotta]

There are a couple of apps but also some terminal commands to clean memory space.

The one I use is

Memory Clean 3 for Mac - FIPLAB

Memory Clean 3 is the most popular app for optimizing your Mac's memory and is best used after you have finished using a memory (RAM) intensive app or game.

fiplab.com

Keep an eye on maintenance apps that in their routines also clean up memory (particularly good for headless Macs).

Thanks!

 

[labyrinth153]

MacOS memory management is absolutely top notch. Generally the only way to go if you have memory pressure is run less tasks, sorry to say.

 

[scgf]

I heard chrome runs better on M1 than safari, how true is that? I’m on Mojave at least and safari runs horribly on my 2018 15’

I have used Windows for some time, Mac before that and with the M1 I moved back to Mac. I'm finding Safari has a slightly stuttery scroll, Chrome much less so. I used Edge on Windows and that was silky smooth so I'm hoping MS gets its act together and releases an ARM version of Edge. I try to avoid anything by Google, so it pains me to have to use Chrome.

 

[VitoBotta]

I just ordered another Mini this time with 16GB. The computer was almost unusable today while testing Docker with my stuff. Hopefully it will be better with 16GB.