What is using all of my computers memory?

[Nosrettap]

I have 8 GB of memory installed and just now it showed that I had almost 5 GB of it active. The problem is, when I went and looked at the list of running programs, the total memory used was not even close to 5GB...I calculated all the programs and it was not even 3GB. What is using the other 2GB. Attached is a screen shot for you to see

 

[McYukon]

Inactive = Allocated (memory that was used for that application you quitted x mins ago ) memory that hasn't been accessed during last N Secs. Will be unallocated the second Mac OS X needs it for some application.

Free = memory that isn't allocated to any process or the kernel.

So, you have 1.01 GB + 1.42 GB = 2.43 GB
In other words, nothing is using the other 2 GB of RAM. It's just idle and waiting to be of use


Here, this makes more sense than what I wrote ;P
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

 

[Nosrettap]

Inactive = Allocated (memory that was used for that application you quitted x mins ago ) memory that hasn't been accessed during last N Secs. Will be unallocated the second Mac OS X needs it for some application.

Free = memory that isn't allocated to any process or the kernel.

So, you have 1.01 GB + 1.42 GB = 2.43 GB
In other words, nothing is using the other 2 GB of RAM. It's just idle and waiting to be of use


Here, this makes more sense than what I wrote ;P
Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

Unfortunately, I think you may have misunderstood my question. My question is, when you look at active memory (in the lower left hand corner) it says that it is using 4.77GB. However, when you look above at the actual programs I have running (sorted in order of memory usage) you can see that it is impossible for me to be using 4.77GB. Hope that makes sense

 

[McYukon]

Oh, well just for the sake of science I tried it here, and it's pretty accurate.
It lists 1906.8 MB in all, converting that to GB with Google gives 1.86 GB. And the Activity Monitor said 1.9 GB so I assume it runds it up to the nearest tens.

I did notice that apparently there are 119 processes, when I looked under the CPU tab. But Activity Monitor only lists 63 of them.
Maybe they are suspended/inactive *shrug*

Not sure what's up with yours, but I wouldn't worry about it unless your Swap and Page Out's* start climbing into the GB numbers.

*Thats when the system starts using the HD as RAM, slowing your system way down.