{"id":37411,"date":"2016-08-10T12:01:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T17:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=37411"},"modified":"2017-04-21T17:32:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T22:32:31","slug":"tech-tip-how-to-monitor-your-macs-memory-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/37411-tech-tip-how-to-monitor-your-macs-memory-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Tip: How to Monitor Your Mac’s Memory Usage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LotsMacs have come a long, long way since the first model appeared\u00a0back in 1984. While the first Mac came with a relatively minuscule 128K (kilobytes) of RAM, the newest crop of Macs comes with a minimum of 4GB of memory<\/a> — with many including 8GB or 16GB right out of the box. But those first Macs also had an advantage in that apps were written to take advantage of that minimal memory as much as possible. Today’s apps seem to be a bit more haphazard about memory, gobbling as much as they need…and more. In this Rocket Yard Tech Tip, we’ll take a look at how you can keep an eye on which apps are using more RAM than they should, and what you can do about it.<\/p>\n

Why is Monitoring Memory Usage Important?<\/strong>
\nParticularly with Macs that have less\u00a0RAM installed — such as the 4GB base model MacBook Air — it’s important to know how that memory is being utilized by your apps. When a number of Mac apps are open and running simultaneously and are using up the available RAM, Mac OS X will begin to use hard disk<\/a> or SSD<\/a> storage for temporary swap files. That slows down operation of your apps and Mac, as read and write operations to disks are much slower than to RAM.<\/p>\n

In those situations where it appears that your Mac is running a bit slower than usual, it’s useful to see how RAM is being utilized and then quit other apps — if necessary — to speed things up.\u00a0Related article:\u00a0<\/strong>Tech 101: Getting the Right Amount of Memory for Your New Mac<\/a><\/p>\n

Activity Monitor<\/strong>
\nThe easiest way to see what’s going on with your Mac’s memory is to look at Activity Monitor. Launch it from Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor. Activity Monitor watches more than just how much RAM is being used; it also monitors CPU usage, which apps are using the most energy, how apps are reading or writing from your hard disk or SSD, and what’s going on with your network.<\/p>\n

Click on the Memory tab, and you see a list of processes being run by various apps, along with how much RAM they’re currently using. Your first glance should be at the small graph in the lower left corner, which shows “Memory Pressure”.\u00a0If this graph, which shows relative memory usage versus time, shows up in green, then things are actually quite good. You’re not using a lot of swap files, so operations are at their most efficient and speedy.<\/p>\n

When you see the Memory Pressure graph spending the majority of its time in yellow or red territory, then it’s time to start thinking about either quitting apps that you aren’t actively using or upgrading your Mac with more RAM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Google
Google Docs is using a lot of RAM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking at the Activity Monitor processes on my iMac as I write this article\u00a0(see image above), I can see that Google Chrome Helper is eating a lot of RAM, but there’s one “app” — actually three Google Docs spreadsheets that I have open in Safari — that is chewing up over 2 GB of my 16GB of RAM. Do I need to have those\u00a0spreadsheets open all of the time? Not really, although it’s convenient to be able to call up the documents whenever I need them. Another app that appears to be using a lot of RAM is Text Expander, which runs in background constantly to let me use keyboard shortcuts to do some amazing things.<\/p>\n

After shutting down Chrome — which I wasn’t really using — and closing the Google Docs spreadsheets, I could see (image below) that my memory usage had dropped from 12.15GB to 7.25GB. That’s not making too much of a difference in terms of operating speed on my speedy iMac with 16GB of RAM, but on an older Mac that might not have as much\u00a0RAM, quitting unused apps or websites\u00a0can make a significant difference in just how fast your Mac responds.<\/p>\n

\"After
After shutting down Google Chrome and the Google Docs spreadsheets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

iStat Menus\u00a0<\/strong>
\nIs there an easier way to keep an eye on your RAM usage and all of the other operations of your Mac? Absolutely… but it isn’t free. One app that has been a favorite of mine for years is iStat Menus<\/a> ($18), a utility that takes all of the power of Activity Monitor and places it a quick click away in your Mac menubar.<\/p>\n

iStat Menus can be set up to either show a number of menubar items that can warn you of high memory pressure issues, an overworked network, or even high CPU temperatures (among other things), or combine\u00a0everything into one convenient drop-down menu. When the latter is selected, memory usage is displayed as a “fuel gauge” that shows details when clicked (see image below).<\/p>\n

\"Monitoring
Monitoring RAM usage with iStat Menus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When using RAM-hungry apps like video editing or live streaming suites, iStat Menus is a lifesaver. More than anything, it can remind you just how much RAM those apps are using, to shut down other apps that aren’t currently needed, or to\u00a0buy your Mac\u00a0a RAM upgrade<\/a>. In fact, as\u00a0OWC’s “MaxRAM” Certification Program<\/a> shows, your Mac might be able to take more memory than you thought and even exceed Apple’s officially supported maximums.<\/p>\n

Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n