How can I reduce the amount of memory being used by my MacBook Air?

[Autolykos]

Dear Mac Forums,

I am a new member in this Forum. I use a MacBook Air running OSX El Capitan 10.11.3. I am writing to inquire if there are any ways (or need) to increase the amount of available memory. Normally, when I run my Mac, the memory stats in the Activities Monitor look like this:

Applications memory: 1,21 GB
Non-virtual (or not swapped) memory: 934 MB
Compressed memory: 1,27 GB
resulting in around 15% memory available memory

I do have quite a number of apps installed. My "Applications” folder occupies 14+ GB. I wonder if this might be the source of the problem (or one of the problems)? I use an app called Memory Clean for monitoring and occasionally cleaning the memory, but this is no real solution. So if anyone in this Forum could find the answer or solution, or a practicable suggestion, to my problem, I would be most grateful. The current MacBook is my first Macintosh machine, so it might as well be that I am exaggerating the problem of working with 15(+/-)% of available memory. However, there still might be some “trick” to gain back more memory (unfortunately, the physical memory of 4GB cannot be upgraded by purchasing more memory – at least as far as I know).

The specifications for my Mac are as follows:

Model name: MacBook Air
Processor: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 1,4 GHz
Number of processors: 1
Number of cores: 2
L2 cahe (as per core): 256 KB
L3 cache: 3MB
Memory: 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB
Boot ROM version: MBA61.0099.B21
SMC version (system): 2.13f15

System version: OSX 10.11.3 (15D21)
Kernel version: Darwin 15.3.0
Boot (system start) volume: Macintosh HD
Boot (system start) mode: Normal
Safe virtual memory: Enabled
System integration safety: Enabled

Best regards,

Autolykos

 

[pigoo3]

My "Applications” folder occupies 14+ GB. I wonder if this might be the source of the problem (or one of the problems)?

Nope!

The current MacBook is my first Macintosh machine, so it might as well be that I am exaggerating the problem of working with 15(+/-)% of available memory. However, there still might be some “trick” to gain back more memory (unfortunately, the physical memory of 4GB cannot be upgraded by purchasing more memory – at least as far as I know).

I'm seeing some possible confusion here regarding the term "memory".

- The term "memory" refers to ram.
- Storage capacity is used when referring to the place where files & apps are stored.

The 14+ gigabyte size of the "Applications" folder has nothing to do with the installed 4gig of ram.

As far as the ram question. Newer versions of the Mac OS handle ram differently. What you should be looking at in Activity Monitor is the "memory pressure". If it's green…everything is fine (regardless of the numbers).

- Nick

 

[Autolykos]

Thank you for the swift reply, Pigoo3! I know that memory and storage capacity are two different things. What I had in mind was that too many apps running might have been the problem. The "memory pressure" in the Activity Monitor" is green.

Best,
Autolykos

 

[pigoo3]

What I had in mind was that too many apps running might have been the problem. The "memory pressure" in the Activity Monitor" is green.

Running a lot of apps at the same time can lead to memory (ram) issues. But if "memory pressure" is green. Then you should be fine.

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

The OS is very, very good at managing memory. The one thing you might watch is the "Swap used" number. Swapped memory is created when the OS needs more memory than is free, so it writes out any part of it that is idle at the moment to the HD to make room. Then when that memory is needed again, it reads it back into memory and continues. That write/read process is slower than if the data were in memory, so it can create slowdowns. Try to avoid triggering the Swapping if you can. My system swaps when I use Parallels because of the amount of memory I allocated to the virtual machine, but when I need the virtual machine, I don't care about the other applications, so I live with it.

 

[lclev]

And in addition to what Jake said, how full the hard drive (SSD) is will cause slowdowns if the SSD is full and you are running a lot of apps requiring use of a swap file. You do not indicate how full your SSD is.

And are you having issues? Is it running slow or are you just worried about what the numbers show? I have a Macbook Air with the same specs as yours and it runs very well. It handles Photoshop, InDesign, and iMovie with no problems. I do clean the system with Onyx about once a month.

Lisa

 

[Autolykos]

Thanks, Lisa, for your reply.

My SSD is now about 75% full (at startup). On no account would I say anything like my MacBook doesn't run well; what concerns me a little is that under OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) I noticed that the small multi-coloured ball indicating that the system is being busy started rotating far sooner (and far more often) than it would have been (or seemed to be) reasonable, and so does it under 10.11 (El Capitan). Another point of concern is ("used to be") is what the numbers show - currently I have 16% available memory (cached files: 600 MB, used swap area: 650 MB), with Safari, MS Word, an online backup service desktop and some smaller apps running. (My Mac has 4GB physical RAM.) "Memory pressure" is green. Well, if if these numbers shown in the Activity Monitor are fine, that's fine for me, too.
Onyx: thanks for the tip, I installed it and have already run it once.

Miklos

 

[MacInWin]

Bear this in mind, you actually WANT all that memory to be in use, if you can. That means your system is optimally using everything. IF memory is 100 used and swap is zero, that's perfection. As for your SSD, it can go to about 95% used before you'll see performance being hit. Unlike spinning drives, there isn't any rotation latency or head movement delays that slows down performance at about 90%. But at 95% you may start to see some rolloff in performance. If you are at 75% now and are adding more, I'd start saving pennies for a bigger SSD down the road. Or some external storage to shift some of that from the internal drive to an external.

 

[pigoo3]

...what concerns me a little is that under OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) I noticed that the small multi-coloured ball indicating that the system is being busy started rotating far sooner (and far more often) than it would have been (or seemed to be) reasonable, and so does it under 10.11 (El Capitan).

If this starts to happen too much…restart/reboot the computer (this will happen with 4gig of ram). Happens less often with more ram. But as I'm sure you know…ram is not upgradeable on this model.

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

And 75% full is bordering on the amount of free space a hard drive needs to work anywhere near efficiently. The further you go over that mark, the more beachballs etc you will see.

 

[MacInWin]

Harry, not on an SSD. For an SSD the margin is 95%.

 

[harryb2448]

I do not believe that Jake. Advice from PC World March 2014 and I quote:-


"Keep Some Space Free!

SSDs slow down as you fill them up because the drive will have a lot of partially filled blocks, which are slower to write to than empty blocks. It’s tempting to fill up an SSD to the brim, but you should leave some free space on your SSD—plan on using a maximum of 75 percent of the drive’s capacity for the best performance."



And Samsung recommend 10% free space on their drives:-


http://www.samsung.com/global/busin.../SSD/global/html/whitepaper/whitepaper05.html