It is infuriating to get the following message when using a Mac: Your system has run out of application memory.
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Usually, this isn't the first sign that something is wrong. You may have noticed that your Mac isn't running as fast as it used to. Or it has been overheating recently, with the fan louder than normal as if it's struggling to carry a heavy load up a hill.
Jun 26, 2014 Sometimes Excel “remembers” a used range, even though you have deleted the reference, and this can increase the file size and memory usage. To check this on each sheet, press Control + End. This will take you to the last used cell of the workbook, and if it’s far beyond what you need, then delete the rows and columns which are not being used.
Running out of application memory doesn't always mean that your hard drive is full. What it means is your CPU can't manage to process and run all of the applications that are currently demanding processing memory power. Although Macs are wonderful computers, they're not supercomputers - they do have limits, and that message means yours has hit a processing limit. Thankfully, there is plenty you can do to resolve this problem and get your Mac operating smoothly again.
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Instead of manually deleting files, get Setapp. It not only removes the clutter but also gives you full control over memory usage.
How do you check memory usage (CPU)?
If your Mac regularly runs into problems or you frequently experience the dreaded spinning color wheel, one of the potential causes could be your Mac's RAM running at close to its maximum capacity.
While memory management in macOS, including techniques like using your startup disk as virtual memory, is excellent these days, there are also more demands being placed on RAM thanks to new features and improvements. The more your Mac has to resort to virtual memory, the less well it will perform. And while the best solution is, if you can, to add more RAM, there are plenty of things you can do to reduce memory usage on your Mac.
Before you can identify which apps are causing problems, you need to know what is taking up so much CPU memory. There are a few ways you can do this.
First thing, find out what apps and processes are using the most memory.
Built into your Mac is an Activity Monitor.
Go to Applications > Activity Monitor. In here, it will show you everything using processing power at the moment. Apps absorbing CPU memory are usually shown as a percentage. Now that you can see what is causing the problem, consider closing uninstalling the ones you don't need.
Another way to solve this is with iStat Menus, a handy monitoring app that will quickly identify what is absorbing so much CPU power.
Tip: By default, iStat Menus shows only five processes, but you can make it show more. On the Dashboard, click the Memory tab and click on the Processes to show menu and select the number of processes you want to see.
Hover over the colored bar chart in each section to see a larger graph of memory usage. You can click on the tabs at the top of the graph to change the time period over which it shows memory usage.
iStat Menus also shows and keeps an automated eye on GPU, network data and disk usage.
Another app, also from Setapp - CleanMyMac - has an automated CPU and hard drive monitor built-in, which can give you a real-time view of memory usage - including your Dropbox account - in your Macs top toolbar.
By now, you'll have a good idea of how your Mac's memory has been used and whether it's caused your Mac to have problems. For a more detailed view on the processes that are hogging RAM, you can go to the bottom of the iStat Menus and click on the Activity Monitor icon (bottom panel, left most icon).
How to reduce your Mac memory usage
CPU memory can be used several ways. This usually isn't a problem to have apps running in the background, but once you've got too much going on your Mac can struggle to function; it can overheat, slow down, even crash and potentially lose what you've been working on.
A wide variety of applications can use processing memory. From startup items to browsers and plugins, to native and downloaded applications, to desktop widgets and apps. In this article, we will cover the various ways you can improve your Macs application memory.
#1: Fix 'kernel_task', a high CPU usage bug
Something you may have noticed through Activity Monitor or one of the apps mentioned in this article, is something called kernel_task is absorbing a large amount of processing power. One of the functions of kernel_task is to help manage CPU temperature; therefore you could find that your Macs fan is loud and always on, even if the device isn't hot to the touch.
kernel_task usually performs this way when one or more applications are trying to use to much CPU. It is working very hard to stop them. Unfortunately, one of the potential downsides - if this is a hardware fault - is a Mac can overheat to such an extent that internal systems are damaged, sometimes irreparably without qualified Apple tech support assistance.
Working through the following steps in this article is one way to avoid similar problems. If none of this work and kernel_task is still absorbing a high percentage of your CPU, then one or more of the following could be the cause:
If you've tried an SMC reset, deleted any app that could be contributed to the problem, and followed the steps in this article and nothing has worked, then it is worth taking your Mac to an Apple Store or qualified support technician.
#2: Reduce memory usage in Finder
One common culprit for hogging RAM is Finder, your Mac's file manager. If iStat Menus or Activity Monitor has highlighted Finder as using hundreds of MBs of RAM, there is an easy solution — change the default display for a new Finder window so it doesn't show All My Files.
While we're talking about Finder, your desktop behaves in a similar way.
Icons on your desktop are drawn and redrawn each time it changes, and their preview images are stored in RAM, so you can use Quick Look. The more files you have on your desktop, the more pressure they put on your Mac's memory. The simplest solution is to move files off the desktop. Declutter (available in Setapp) can help here. It moves files from your desktop to color-coded folders automatically, based on rules you set.
It is also worth applying the Merge All Windows setting, to avoid each window in Finder taking up more RAM.
#3: Improve Chrome's Task Manager
Chrome is a popular browser, especially if you use other Google products, such as Gmail and G Suite. But it can be bad news for your GPU, which negatively impacts how much memory it uses. Chrome uses a GPU Process as standard, which means it speeds up the loading of web pages, which can be great except at times when your computer is struggling with insufficient RAM.
To make this change, go to:
#4: Clean up browsers
In every browser you use regularly, there are always going to be extensions and popups that take up space and use RAM. Either go through each one manually, or use a tool such as CleanMyMac to identify and delete them.
Get CMM X to free up space
Install CleanMyMac X and streamline the entire process of memory management on Mac. Clever memory usage control done for you.
With Chrome it can take a little more work to delete extensions. While Chrome extensions are shown in CleanMyMac, you have to remove them from Chrome. If you identify a Chrome extension that uses too much RAM, launch Chrome, click on the Window menu, then Extensions. Scan the list of extensions and click the trash can icon next to those that are too RAM-heavy or no longer needed.
It is also worth limiting the number of tabs you have open to keep browser CPU usage to a minimum.
#5: Disable login items
Login items, browser extensions, and preference panes, such as Flash, are another common source of memory usage. Most of us have several installed that we rarely use, but which hog memory and reduce performance.
One way to do this is through System Preferences:
Another way, one that is even quicker, is to employ CleanMyMac to identify and cleanup login items.
Not all login items can be removed on their own. Those that can't have an 'i' in place of the checkbox. Click on it to find out why it can't be removed. One common reason is being required by the application that installed it — the only way to remove it would be to uninstall the application.
If you don't use the application, click on the Uninstaller tool in CleanMyMac. Check the box next to the name of the app and click Uninstall. The app, its associated files, and the login item will be removed.
#6: Disable desktop widgets
Desktop widgets can provide a useful shortcut to apps you need to access fairly often. But they can take up processing memory that is slowing your whole Mac down. One way to close them completely is in System Preferences.
Go to: Mission Control > switch off the Dashboard
#7: Declutter your desktop
Your desktop is meant to be a way to find important files and documents you are currently working on. And apps you need often. And anything else that you maybe happen to need one day. Pretty soon, a desktop can look like a suitcase you've packed for every possible eventuality. A complete mess! And impossible to find what you really need.
Plus, a messy desktop can absorb valuable processing power. Either spend time manually sorting files into folders, and vowing to keep it tidy. Or use an app - such as Declutter or Spotless - to quickly arrange folders and declutter your desktop.
#8: Reduce startup items at least 20%
Most startup disk drives contain a whole load of things people don't need anymore. Either an old-fashioned and manual decluttering should remove at least 20% of these files and apps, or you can use a tool such as CleanMyMac to remove junk. Another problem is Adobe Flash - an application that is largely useless online due to security flaws and weaknesses.
Adobe Flash is a major culprit when it comes to hogging RAM and making your Mac run slowly. Most videos on the web today don't need Flash.
How to remove Flash?
To get Flash off of your Mac in common way, you'll need an uninstaller from Adobe and follow a huge Adobe instruction. Instead downloading anything extra to uninstall Flash, you can use CleanMyMac via Setapp.
#9: Schedule regular cleanups
Consider that every time you use your Mac it slows down a little bit. You use more files, install more apps, and take up more storage. While going through the cleaning process described above isn't an everyday routine, try to schedule it monthly and stick to it. Your Mac will thank you for it.
It is also worth fully shutting down your Mac more often. It will perform better. Speed up and stop overheating as much when it is allowed to shut down instead of going to sleep.
CPU use can have a serious impact on the health of your Mac. Not only can it slowdown and start to overheat, but if problems persist it can cause a critical failure. Keep your Mac free of clutter and healthy. Remove folders and apps you don't need, and keep an eye on startup items, browser extensions, your desktop, widgets, and anything else that is shown as a CPU hog in Activity Monitor. Your Mac will perform at its best for far longer with regular care and cleanups.
“No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow”, an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let’s put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.
First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.
![]() ![]() “Your system has run out of application memory”
How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating “rainbow wheels” aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You’ll also see many browser applications crashing. You’ll be also thrown warning messages as “Your system has run out of application memory”. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.
How to open Activity Monitor on Mac
Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you’ve got left.
A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:
Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.
I’ve attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here’s what it all means:
App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can’t be freed up Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps Swap used: memory used by macOS Cached files: memory you can really use
Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but “available memory” your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it’s a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.
How to check CPU usage on Mac
Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.
Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage
Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you’re looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don’t worry, you’re not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.
So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:
Now, you won’t see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn’t require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here’s how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:
As you’ve already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you’ll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.
Tip # 2. Tune up Chrome’s Task Manager
Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:
The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That’s the proper answer why Chrome uses so much RAM.
I’ve been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It’s a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.
To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.
Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop
This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it’s cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it’s recommended to keep your Desktop clean.
You don’t have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.
Tip #4. Clear cache files
Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won’t save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.
So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:
If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don’t forget to empty the bin afterward.
Tip # 5. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory
The available space on your Mac’s drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you’ve run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.
The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.
What to delete to free up space:
But here’s a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X — the app I’ve mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.
Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X
If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see “Your system has run out of application memory” message.
As simple as that!
And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.
Tip # 6. Remove browser extensions
Plugins, add-ons, and the rest of extra tools atop your browser may alter your Mac’s behavior. Gmail alone could take up the appreciable amount of your RAM. And when the extensions are too many they seriously slow your Mac down. How to remove them? Each browser goes about it differently, but you would typically find them in Settings under a three-dot burger menu.
At this point, you may not even be aware of what widgets and plugins your browser is dragging behind. Today there are coming numerous reports of websites secretly mining bitcoins while you’re browsing their page, thus earning money at the cost of your RAM.
If you’re using Safari, deleting extensions may be easier than you think. You just need to open Safari and select Preferences from the Safari menu on the top-right. In the Extensions tab, select the extension you want to remove and click Uninstall. If you have a massive number of extensions, removing all of them may be time-consuming. That’s why it may be easier to go with an automatic solution.
An app I’ve mentioned before, CleanMyMac X has a special module to conveniently remove all the “extras” from your Mac. An Uninstaller module allows you to remove all apps you downloaded when you added extensions to the Safari browser.
You can as well uninstall all extensions from Safari. Just go to the Extensions tab in CleanMyMac X and remove all extensions in one click!
Tip # 7. How to free up RAM on Mac: Close Finder windows
Okay, suppose you’re still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you’ll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It’s no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:
Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows
Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.
What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac
I’ve saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.
That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you’re looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.
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January 2023
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