No matter how much RAM or powerful hardware you have on your Mac, you will feel that it becomes slow over time. This makes you think whether or not it's time to upgrade the hardware. But simply upgrading the hardware isn't a good solution to problems. Well most times productivity of your system depends on Memory usage.
How To Reduce Mac Memory Usage
So, you need to learn that how to free up memory on Mac. There are many ways to reduce memory usage on Mac we are listing here some simple ways to do so.
See real-time CPU, network, or disk status in the Dock. It's easy to keep an eye on your system status without even looking at the Activity Monitor window—you can monitor your CPU, network, or disk usage as a live graph right in the Dock. Click the ' I ' icon and view the details: real memory size, virtual memory size, shared memory size, private memory size, statistics, open files and ports. The Settings button helps to collect the most complete information about the selected process. If you need a closer look at your Mac's memory use, there are a few ways to go about it. From the Storage screen, you can select ‘Manage,' which takes you to a new window. Applications, Documents, Photos, and other sections can be found on the left of this window, and a detailed view of those files on the right. You can also use Finder! Monitoring your Mac's memory. The Activity Monitor application that comes with Mac OS X (in the Utilities folder) is an adequate way of checking your memory usage but I prefer the Dashboard widget, iStat Pro (click this link to download). I usually check my iStat Pro readings a few times a day.
1. Kill unwanted applications using Activity Monitor:
There are many applications or programs which keep running in background all the time even if you do not want them. On a windows computer we use Task manager to kill such programs. On a Mac you can use Activity Monitor to do this. You can find a shortcut to open activity monitor and when you will access it you will find a memory tab in which your applications or process are sorted by the amount of memory they are consuming.
At the bottom grid you can see the memory they are consuming in which you will see a break up of Memory used. Which include following
Wired Memory: Reserved by apps which cannot be spared.
Compressed: In active and can be used by other applications.
Swap Used: Memory which is being used by Mac OS.
You can check the pressure on your memory by the graphical representation at the bottom if it is higher than your system has ran out of application memory. For sure you need to force quit or kill some application. Which you can do by choosing an application and then clicking on force quit.
2. Use An Optimization Tool:
Using an optimizer tool can help to regain the used memory and speed up your Mac. One of the best mac optimization tools is Disk Clean Pro. It removes junk files such as cache files, log files, temporary and trash to recover space on your computer. The tool scans all your browsers, deletes Internet history, cookies and application cache to make sure your privacy remains intact.
Moreover, you can manage duplicate files, old downloads and mail downloads in a few clicks. So, get Disk Clean Pro and restore space on your Mac
Memory Usage High
Download Disk Clean Pro To Speedup Your Mac
3. Clean shortcuts from the Desktop:
Next thing which can be done to clean Mac memory is cleaning of desktop have minimum icons on the desktop and it will take comparatively lesser time to load at start up and you will have comparatively more memory free at the same time.
4. Reduce Memory Usage by configuring Finder preferences:
There is a simple trick to free up around 1 GB of RAM. Default preferences on your finder are set to search your files when you are browsing folders which means it saves path for all your files which creates excessive burden on Mac.
To change finder preferences settings, click Finder and go to Finder Preferences.
Open General tab. You will find a drop-down menu under New Finder Windows Show: click on it.
Reduce Memory Usage Mac
Choose any of the given folders either it can be Downloads folder or any folder of your choice.
Now close finder preferences and relaunch finder by double clicking on it and holding options button at the same time.
5. Optimizing browser extensions:
Extensions installed on your browser also consumes RAM because when you actively use web browser these extensions also consume memory because they run all the time actively whenever you browse. Safari, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are the browsers we broadly used web browsers. So, you should minimize the number of widgets or plugins installed on these web browsers. It not only helps in reducing memory usage but also helps in free up disk space on Mac.
6. Close unwanted finder Windows:
Another simple method to save data is to close finder windows. There can be multiple finder windows which are open on your Mac without your knowledge. Some of them are collapsed together or some of them are stacked on blind spot on your screen. So, if you want to close all the open finder windows to free up memory on your Mac then you can click on finder then Window and then Merge all Windows. Now you will find all the finder windows open in front of you and you can easily close them all and this was how to free up RAM on Mac.
So, these were some quick and easy tips to free up memory on Mac. Apart from this if you want to reduce memory usage then you should not keep multiple tabs open on your browser and detach non-required peripherals. Hope these simple ways to boost up your PC will work well for you. If you have any other suggestions, please let us know in the comment box.
-->To find memory leaks and inefficient memory usage, you can use tools such as the debugger-integrated Memory Usage diagnostic tool or tools in the Performance Profiler such as the .NET Object Allocation tool and the post-mortem Memory Usage tool.
The Memory Usage tool lets you take one or more snapshots of the managed and native memory heap. You can collect snapshots of .NET, ASP.NET, C++, or mixed mode (.NET and native) apps. The Memory Usage tool can run on an open Visual Studio project, on an installed Microsoft Store app, or attached to a running app or process. You can run the Memory Usage tool with or without debugging. For more information, see Run profiling tools with or without the debugger. In the debugger, you can turn memory profiling on and off, and see a per-object breakdown of memory usage. You can view memory usage results when execution is paused, for example at a breakpoint.
.NET developers may choose between either the .NET Object Allocation tool or the Memory usage tool.
- The .NET Object Allocation tool helps you identify allocation patterns and anomalies in your .NET code, and helps identify common issues with garbage collection. This tool runs only as a post-mortem tool. You can run this tool on local or remote machines.
- The Memory Usage tool is helpful in identifying memory leaks, which are not typically common in .NET apps. If you need to use debugger features while checking memory, such as stepping through code, the debugger-integrated Memory usage tool is recommended.
C++ developers can use either the debugger-integrated or non-debugger Memory Usage tool.
You can use the profiling tools without the debugger with Windows 7 and later. Windows 8 and later is required to run profiling tools with the debugger (Diagnostic Tools window).
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