Why am I using so much memory? M1 MacBook Pro

[SXR]

Hi everyone,

Just got my M1 MacBook Pro a week ago. I got a CTO with 16 GB Unified Memory and 512 GB SSD.
Been looking at the activity monitor for a while and I noticed something.

My memory usage right now is 12,05 GB from the 16 GB in total. Thats quite much. But Im not really doing much. Im just running the following apps:

- Safari (7 tabs)
- Messages
- Mail
- Spotify
- Lastpass
- Twitter

I have no heavy CPU usage going on and most of the above mentioned apps are just idle in the background. How come that I'm using that much memory then? Does anyone have an idea? I'd love to know. I've included a pic with this post. Sorry for the fact that it's in Dutch. But I think most of you Mac users can figure out what it says when looking at your own activity monitor.

Thanks folks, bless you!

 

[topcat001]

Your memory pressure is well in the green, and unless something shows high usage under the Memory column in Activity Monitor everything is normal. Please note that the system tries to fill up as much memory as possible for efficiency.

 

[Crazy Badger]

What is the obsession with monitoring system resources?

Unless you're encountering problems or running out of them, it's not an issue, is it?

 

[Quackers]

A number of people (not too many) have had a problem with Safari using massive amounts of memory.
But I think that might be solved now. I think it was caused by an ad blocker iirc.

 

[NewUsername]

Nothing to worry about. macOS will typically use as much memory as it can, because unused memory is wasted memory. My 2015 MacBook Air has about 6 out of 8 GB used right now with zero memory issues. If you would have 4GB RAM, you would see about 3GB in use in normal usage, et cetera.

To see if you have enough memory, this is not a very useful criterium. It's better to look at the colour. If everything is green, then it's fine. If it's oranje, more memory would be beneficial. If it's red, your system is running out of memory.

So as long as everything is green, you have enough memory.

Also see https://support.apple.com/nl-nl/guide/activity-monitor/actmntr34865/mac

 

[SXR]

Thanks man. Yeah oranje is dutch for orange

Thats clear now. And no its not a problem and im not obsessed with system resources, was just wondering why. I guess it makes sense to use as much memory as is available for things to run smoothly. I also notice that my swap is non-existant or very low. Probably cause theres enough RAM available.

 

[rohitmac]

I am using M1 Mac Air with 8 GB, while watching disneyplus on safari, message appeared that its consuming too much memory.
I didn't verified stats at that time of time but it was weird that only running one tab of safari with no other app opened, Mac started complaining

 

[topcat001]

It would be very interesting to screenshot your Activity Monitor Memory view the next time this happens. Please do it and post.

 

[Toutou]

while watching disneyplus on safari, message appeared that its consuming too much memory.
I didn't verified stats at that time of time but it was weird that only running one tab of safari with no other app opened, Mac started complaining

That wasn't the Mac complaining. It was Safari warning you specifically about the one page that was consuming lots of system resources. Some websites run an obscene amount of JavaScript and can destroy your battery life or use a lot of RAM, and in that case Safari warns you.

 

[LV426]

Thanks man. Yeah oranje is dutch for orange

Thats clear now. And no its not a problem and im not obsessed with system resources, was just wondering why. I guess it makes sense to use as much memory as is available for things to run smoothly. I also notice that my swap is non-existant or very low. Probably cause theres enough RAM available.

You've hit the nail on the head yourself, there. If you have available RAM, it's a good thing to use it. Swap degrades performance.

 

[SXR]

You've hit the nail on the head yourself, there. If you have available RAM, it's a good thing to use it. Swap degrades performance.

Yeah, guess so. And I heard that excessive swap is bad for SSD, but I've also heard thats its not a problem on MacOS

 

[biffuz]

A number of people (not too many) have had a problem with Safari using massive amounts of memory.
But I think that might be solved now. I think it was caused by an ad blocker iirc.

Ad blockers use way less memory than ads anyway

 

[cobapple]

Hi, I saw this video yesterday, this girl got "out of memory" issue even though she only used Chrome and Finder.

I wonder if it is OS or Browser related issue.

Hopefully it is not hardware related issue.

Here is the channel:

 

[SXR]

Hi, I saw this video yesterday, this girl got "out of memory" issue even though she only used Chrome and Finder.

I wonder if it is OS or Browser related issue.

View attachment 1695144

Hopefully it is not hardware related issue.

Here is the channel:

Yeah, thanks for sharing. That is unusual i think

 

[inbloomgc]

Hi, I saw this video yesterday, this girl got "out of memory" issue even though she only used Chrome and Finder.

I wonder if it is OS or Browser related issue.

View attachment 1695144

Hopefully it is not hardware related issue.

Here is the channel:

Lately, I've been getting that popup (since I downloaded Big Sur I think). I never used to with my old 2013 MBA. I've been using my 2020 MBA since April 2020, and only just started getting these popups. I don't know why it's starting up now when my usage behavior hasn't really changed. But it's annoying as heck, and I have to quit some applications I don't want to quit to make it go away.

 

[Charm8er]

I just recently bought my first Mac. Its a MacBook Pro M1 8GB with 256 SSD. It was free from points I get for sales at work (these points took about 8 months to acquire though), so far I am not very impressed. Granted, I am used to running a hopped up Windows 10 gaming PC with 64GB Ram. Regardless, this thing can't even handle 8 tabs on Safari while listening to Apple Music. It is constantly freezing up, I have to sit and wait a few minutes for it to catch up before it'll respond again. I haven't got the out of memory error that others have talked about but this lock up seems to happen any time the memory usage goes above 7.0GB. Im just trying to build a website on Webflow and this is crap. My previous HP laptop with only 4GB ram never had issues like this. So far I am not very impressed with MacOS, I love the UI design and integration with my iPhone and iPad, but it just can't seem to handle basic tasks that a 6 year old Windows PC still can just fine.