Open Activity Monitor. Click on the Memory tab. Click the Memory column to sort processes by Memory usage. This will make it easier to see which process or app is hogging the RAM. To remove support files by using MacCleaner Pro, follow these steps: Launch App Cleaner & Uninstaller and switch to Expert mode. Select any app from the list on the left and view its support files in the pane on the right. Select all files except the executables and click to remove them.
One of the most common problems that Mac users encounter is low computer memory. Over time, even the most powerful computer will get cluttered with apps, files, extensions , and processes that are too much to handle. To get everything back to normal (because every byte matters), you need to declutter your Mac by cleaning up the mess and removing unnecessary stuff that consumes your computer’s memory.
So when your computer is slowing down, you are likely to notice a “Your system has run out of application memory” message, many of your apps are crashing, or you keep on seeing a lot of spinning rainbow wheels. All these mean your computer is probably low on memory or RAM.
This article will show you how to free up memory on a Mac and other tips to optimize your machine.
What Is RAM?
RAM stands for Random Access Memory and it is one of the most important components of computers and laptops. It is where the computer stores data before being processed. It is a form of volatile memory, where the data is available only when the device is powered on, and everything gets deleted when it is shut down.
Pro Tip: Scan your Mac for performance issues, junk files, harmful apps, and security threats
that can cause system issues or slow performance.
Special offer. About Outbyte, uninstall instructions, EULA, Privacy Policy.
Most Macs are equipped with 8GB RAM, but older versions only have 4GB RAM. This is enough if you’re not using RAM-hungry apps, but even then, you’ll still most probably run into memory-related problems in the long run. If you notice that your Mac is taking ages to load or your applications are often crashing, you need to do something to manage your computer’s memory and give it some breathing space.
However, upgrading your Mac’s RAM is more complicated than it sounds. Not all Macs have upgradeable RAM , so you need to check first whether your Mac model has a removable RAM or not. In some models, particularly MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, the RAM is soldered to the board and cannot be replaced.
Before you think about installing more RAM, you should first try the tips listed below to free up your Mac memory.
How to Free Up RAM on macOS Mojave
There are several things you can do to manage your Mac memory usage and fix any RAM-related problems you are experiencing.
Reboot Your Mac
The first thing you should do when you free up RAM is to restart your Mac. Refreshing the system solves the problem most of the time, especially if the issue was caused by a minor glitch or an app that crashed. Restarting your Mac will delete the data on your RAM and any disk cache, so things should run smoother and faster after rebooting.
However, if you’re in the middle of something and you’re afraid of losing whatever you’re working on, restarting your computer might not be a good idea. If your macOS has hung because you ran out of memory but you don’t want to lose any unsaved information, you might want to try the other solutions below.
Update Your macOS
It is also possible that your memory problem is being caused by a macOS bug or issue. If this is the case, it is important to check whether you are running the latest version of macOS and install any necessary updates.
To check whether there’s an update you need to install, follow the steps below:
- Click the Apple logo and choose App Store under System Preferences.
- Click the Updates tab.
- Install all updates, if there are any.
After installing all the updates, restart your Mac and check whether your RAM problem has been resolved.
Check Memory Usage via Activity Monitor
When your app freezes or your Mac seems to be slower than usual, the first thing you need to check is the Activity Monitor. This is a built-in tool that shows you how much memory is being used, which apps are using it, and how much memory each app or process is hogging. The Activity Monitor will also help you determine if a particular process or app is consuming memory resources more than it should.
When you access the Activity Monitor app, you’ll see complete information regarding each running process or app. You can also add extra data by adding columns on the window.
To launch Activity Monitor, go to Finder > Go > Utilities > Activity Monitor or type in activity monitor in Spotlight. In the Activity Monitor Window, you’ll see a list of processes along with tabs of information regarding those processes, namely CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network.
Click on the Memory tab to understand how your memory is actually being used by your apps and processes. At the bottom of the window, you’ll see a graph on Memory Pressure and information regarding Physical Memory, Memory Used, Cached Files , and Swap Used. On the rightmost side of the graph, you’ll see data for App Memory, Wired Memory, and Compressed.
The Memory Pressure graph shows how much pressure your computer’s RAM is currently under. Ideally, the graph should be green, which indicates low pressure for your memory. A yellow graph means that you are short of memory while a red graph indicates a critical situation for your RAM, at which point you need to free up some space as soon as possible.
Follow the instructions below to free up some of your RAM using Activity Monitor:
- Launch Activity Monitor and click on the Memory tab.
- Click on the Memory column to arrange the processes according to their memory usage. Make sure that the processes are sorted out from the highest to the lowest.
- If you think that an app is consuming more than its share of memory resources, you can easily kill the process by clicking on the Quit button. Take note, however, that this does not necessarily kill the app. If the process you killed is a webpage, it will just close and reload that page without closing the browser. But if you closed a specific app, you’ll usually see a “closed unexpectedly” warning.
Warning: Don’t close processes that you are not familiar with because they may be related to other important processes on your computer.
Close Unnecessary Apps
Some Mac users are guilty of clicking the close button and thinking that the app is already close d. Note, though, that clicking the close button only closes the window, not the app itself. More often than not, you’re left with several apps still open without you even knowing about it.
Even without looking at the Activity Monitor, you can see which apps are running just by looking at the Dock. If you see a dot below the icon of the app, it means that these apps are still open.
Here’s how to properly close an application and free up some of your memory:
- Right-click the app icon on the Dock.
- Select Quit from the right-click menu.
- Alternatively, you can also choose Quit from the app’s top menu.
Tidy Up Your Files
If you have the habit of saving everything on your Desktop and just leaving them there, then you might want to organize your stuff to lessen the stress on your computer. macOS treats every icon on the Desktop as an active window, so the more items you have on it, the bigger your memory consumption will be.
Delete all unnecessary files and get rid of your junk files using an app such as Outbyte MacRepair. You can also drag all of them into one folder to make your Desktop neat and tidy.
Delete Cache Files
Deleting cache files will help free up some of your memory, but this is not something a beginner should do. The Cache folder contains some system files that are important for your Mac to run properly, so you should know which files to delete and which ones to keep.
If you’re confident that you know what you’re doing, you can delete cache files by following these steps:
- Click Finder > Go > Go to Folder.
- Type in ~/Library/Caches/ in the dialog box.
- Delete the cache files that you don’t need in the folder, but make sure that you know what files you are deleting.
Clear Inactive Memory via Terminal
Another way to free up your computer’s memory is by purging it using the Terminal. To do this, open the Terminal and type in sudo purge. Hit Enter and type in the admin password. Next, wait as your Mac’s inactive memory is being deleted.
- Edit Your Finder Settings.
If you launch the Finder app and you see either All My Files or Recents, then you might want to change how your Finder app is configured because all the locations of the files shown in that window will be stored in RAM, therefore using up more resources. What you can do is show a specific folder so that only one location will appear.
To do this:
- Launch Finder and go to Preferences.
- Click the General tab.
- Under New Finder windows show , choose a specific folder such as Documents or Desktop.
- Close Finder and relaunch the app.
If you have multiple Finder windows open, you can either close those that you don’t need or merge them all together. To merge all open window, click Window from the top menu and click Merge All Windows. This may not save you a huge chunk of memory space, but it helps.
Summary
A computer’s memory is a precious commodity that needs to be managed strategically. Since upgrading RAM on Mac computers can be difficult, and sometimes not possible, you can try the methods above to gain back some breathing room for your memory. The trick here is to quit all that you don’t need, delete your junk files, and streamline your processes. Once you do, you’ll definitely notice a huge improvement in your Mac’s performance.
See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy Policy.
2020-12-28 17:31:38 • Filed to: macOS 10.15 • Proven solutions
Having a large storage space may influence you into many activities. Unfortunately, too much may end up making your Mac slow. Nobody wants a slow machine. So, the only solution for this issue is to clear RAM on macOS 10.15.
When your Mac is slow, it is an indication that the RAM is under excess usage. Most of the times, this is noticeable when an application hangs, when you get a message stating that the system has run out of memory for application or see a dreaded spinning beach ball.
If this happens, you need to reduce memory usage on macOS 10.15. Freeing up memory on macOS 10.15 is not difficult and so this article will provide some of the solutions to help you clear RAM on macOS 10.15. These helpful tips will restore your Mac back to normal speed.
How to Clear Memory (RAM) on macOS 10.15
RAM is the abbreviation for Random Access Memory, which provides storage meant for ongoing processes and tasks. It is different from the usual Mac storage because it is faster. As a result, some things will be automatically stored in RAM to ensure things speed up.
When your Mac’s RAM is used up, here are the signs;
- You will often see a spinning beach ball
- The Mac will take long periods to load
- Application will crash often
- You will get; “your system has run out of application memory”
If this happens, it is time to free up storage space on macOS 10.15.
The following tips are ways to free up storage space
1. Restarting the Mac
Restarting Mac solves a lot of problems, so it should help you in freeing up memory on macOS 10.15. It involves turning the Mac off and turning it on again. During the restart process, Mac will clear RAM on macOS 10.15 and present disk crashes.
Therefore, when you turn it on processes run smoothly. However, it may not be convenient when you are busy and in the middle of something that you may lose if your Mac goes off.
How To Wipe Memory On A Mac
2. Updating macOS
At times, RAM slowness occurs because your macOS is outdated or has an issue. To resolve this and further reduce memory usage on macOS 10.15, you can update macOS. Ensure that you get the most up to date OS version.
How To Clear Memory On A Fax Machine
3. Checking the Activity Monitor
Activity monitor can show you the memory in use and the apps using more than they should, especially when an app freezes. You should focus on the App memory since it shows the memory used by processes and apps.
After checking it, you can shut it down to free up storage space on macOS 10.15, through the following steps;
- Open “Activity Monitor”
- Select “Memory” tab
- Select “Memory” column; sort processes by memory they use
- Choose the misbehaving app; click “(i)” in the menu to get information on memory usage
- Force quit the process by selecting “X”.
4. Remove Apps from Startup Items
Removing apps from startup items, especially those least needed, can help in freeing up memory on macOS 10.15. Remove an application using the following procedure;
- Access “System Preferences”
- Select “Users and Groups”
- Choose “User Name”; if not selected on the sidebar’s left side
- Select “Login Items”
- You will notice an app collection that opens whenever you restart Mac
- If their running is unnecessary, select each and choose the (-) button.
5. Checking CPU Usage
Suspect apps not only hog RAM, but also use up too much processing power. This causes your Mac to be slower. Therefore, it is important to confirm the CPU usage in the Activity Monitor.
After checking, clear RAM on macOS 10.15 by quitting the process.
- Open the “Activity Monitor”
- Select the “CPU” tab
- Click the column header to sort by %CPU; check abnormal usage
- Note the process with high percentage usage
- Quit the process or app by selecting it and clinking “X” in the menu.
Best PDF Editor for macOS 10.15
PDFelement for Mac is undoubtedly the best PDF solution for macOS 10.15. It gives users the best experience in PDF management through its intuitive design. Beginners can easily use it, even as it advances its technology and provides better packages that are very affordable.
Due to its amazing features, PDFelement for Mac works marvelously in the Mac. It conducts text markups that allow you to strikethrough, underline and highlight texts in the PDF documents.
Therefore, if you want to mark important parts of the PDF pages for later reference, you can incorporate its fluorescent marker. Its “Strikethrough” option enables you to indicate texts to be deleted or ignored. Also, you can emphasize on certain information by underlining.
Additionally, this PDF editor enables you to make comments in the PDFs. Therefore, you can input illustrations, opinions or fact statements and remarks. What’s more, you can move, delete or edit these comments easily.
Therefore, using PDFelement for Mac as your PDF editor in macOS 10.15 comes with various benefits. It is pocket friendly and comes in multiple varieties, namely packages. As you markup texts and make comments, everything flows easily.
The intuitive design makes it possible to enjoy work since the experience is amazing.
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
0 Comment(s)