Application Memory is full!

[ckristoff]

Hello friends,
this afternoon, I had an error message to say my application memory is full. the message box suggested to force quit. At the same time, I was typing a letter for my cardiac doctor, whom I see tomorrow afternoon, for a heart scan.
So, I kept clicking on the red button, to close the message box, but it kept showing up on the screen. it was an important letter, which I didn't wish to type out again.

Once I got my letter printed, I click in the error message box and clicked force quit, hoping I wasn't going to break anything.

I tried to search my computer to see what I could find. I didn't find anything. I went online to Apple support. There were 2 questions there with a similar problem, but it wasn't helpful. One guy suggested a reboot. Is this right? Would I lose any information? If it is right, how do I do it?

Where would I find Application Memory?


Thank you, Frank.

 

[MacInWin]

Application memory can be monitored with the Activity Monitor app found in Applications/Utilties. One of the tabs in that application is Memory, where you can see what is going on.

Is this problem on the iPac in your profile or on another system? Are you still at 10.12.6 version of the OS? 8GB should be enough for most things to work well. How many applications are you trying to run at the same time? Note: Clicking the red X does not actually shut down an app, it just pushes it into the background and leaves it running (and taking up memory). To actually shut down an app, click on the app name in the upper left corner of the screen, then Quit from the menu option. That will actually shut down the app and remove it from memory.

EDIT: And a reboot will normally clear up application memory as long as you don't restart the same applications in the reboot process. Uncheck "Reopen Windows" in the shutdown dialog box to prevent that from happening. Whether or not you lose information depends on whether or not the open apps have any open documents that you have not saved. Properly behaving apps should warn you that you need to save before being shut down to help you not lose anything.

 

[ckristoff]

Application memory can be monitored with the Activity Monitor app found in Applications/Utilties. One of the tabs in that application is Memory, where you can see what is going on.

Is this problem on the iPac in your profile or on another system? Are you still at 10.12.6 version of the OS? 8GB should be enough for most things to work well. How many applications are you trying to run at the same time? Note: Clicking the red X does not actually shut down an app, it just pushes it into the background and leaves it running (and taking up memory). To actually shut down an app, click on the app name in the upper left corner of the screen, then Quit from the menu option. That will actually shut down the app and remove it from memory.

EDIT: And a reboot will normally clear up application memory as long as you don't restart the same applications in the reboot process. Uncheck "Reopen Windows" in the shutdown dialog box to prevent that from happening. Whether or not you lose information depends on whether or not the open apps have any open documents that you have not saved. Properly behaving apps should warn you that you need to save before being shut down to help you not lose anything.

Hello Jake, thank you very much for your kind reply. As you can tell, I'm still a beginner, regarding the Apple way of using computers. For decades I used Windows PCs. So by click the red dot, I'm not achieving anything - ok. My version of Mac OS is Mojave 10.14.6, is this okay?

How many applications have I got running? I simply don't know! I know this. Since the school summer holidays, my 8 year old grandson, has taken a shine to my Mac, playing an online game called Roblox. What it is I don't know. Perhaps I should supervise him more often.

Thank you for your advice,

Frank.

 

[ckristoff]

Hello Jake,
after a lot of searching, I finally discovered the Activity Monitor! So, I clicked on the Memory tab. One column is titled PID, and it numbers in the hundreds. There are lots of them I'm afraid. What must I do next? How do I delete these items, but not destroying items that refer to Apple products, for example, Safari, which has a number of 605.

I apologise for being dumb, because I am!

Thank you, Frank.

 

[IWT]

Frank, you are neither dumb nor stupid. We are here to help and will do our best. Already, Jake, a stalwart of our Forums, has given good advice.

I am a little concerned by your statement:

my 8 year old grandson, has taken a shine to my Mac, playing an online game called Roblox.

Children are wonderful in many ways, but one of their abilities is to ignore and explore. Once you let them have access to your Mac, neither they nor you know what they have "explored". As you admit, as we all do, that you don't know what Roblox, and possibly others, is/are, therein may lie the problem - or not, I agree.

Rebooting is always a good idea, but as Jake says, as long as you follow his advice and uncheck "Reopen Windows".

Please post back. We're with you!

Ian

 

[ckristoff]

Frank, you are neither dumb nor stupid. We are here to help and will do our best. Already, Jake, a stalwart of our Forums, has given good advice.

I am a little concerned by your statement:



Children are wonderful in many ways, but one of their abilities is to ignore and explore. Once you let them have access to your Mac, neither they nor you know what they have "explored". As you admit, as we all do, that you don't know what Roblox, and possibly others, is/are, therein may lie the problem - or not, I agree.

Rebooting is always a good idea, but as Jake says, as long as you follow his advice and uncheck "Reopen Windows".

Please post back. We're with you!

Ian

Hello Ian,
great to hear from you. Thank you for your reply. Is it cold in Scotland? I'm already cold and dreading winter!

My next question is how do I safely do a reboot? Will I lose any info, such as downloads? It's not the same as factory reset is it?


Thank you, Frank.

 

[MacInWin]

Frank, reboot is essentially just a restart of the system, no resetting of anything. To do the rebooting, the best way is to click on the  in the upper left corner, then Shut Down... in the resulting window. That action will turn the machine totally off, closing all programs. As I said, in the shutdown dialog a box opens to confirm you want to shut down and in the box is a check box for Reopen Windows that you want to make sure is NOT checked. If any application has a document that needs saving, it should tell you that and allow you to do that before it quits it and shuts down. Once the machine is totally off you can wait a few seconds and the press the power button to start it up again. On the iMac, that button is behind the screen on the lower left side, I think. I don't have your model iMac but that's where it's been for a few models I do know about. Just a quick press on that button should power it back up. You will be asked to enter your password to log into the system, so be prepared for that.

As for the other stuff...all of those processes you see in Activity Monitor are part of how the system operates. There can be hundreds of them (right now I have 516 processes, 2,000 threads running), some with the User being you, some with the User as "root" and some as "system" or even some as other applications. The only ones to worry about in that list are any that are taking a lot of CPU, or Memory or that have turned red color, indicating they are not responding (typically that means they are hung up somehow). You can sort the columns by clicking on the header of each column to sort the entire table by that column. That's handy to get the "heavy hitters" to the top of the list. Also, on the Memory tab there is a graphic showing "Memory Pressure." That is a simplified view of how hard the memory is working. Normally it's Green, occasionally it may go yellow. Anything above that is way over normal and the system will be affected.

On the Dock (assuming it's on the default bottom of your screen) all of the running apps will be displayed as icons, with a small dot beneath them (or beside them if you moved the Dock to the side edge). That means they are running. You can close them independently by right clicking (or CMD & Click) on them and a menu will open, with one option to Quit.

The macOS is based on Unix, which is a multi-user system, so it approaches things differently than Windows does. The red X, as I said, pushes the application into the background, still running, for the most part, the yellow X minimizes the application to the Dock and the Green X will change the size of the window from full to partial screen. Some apps do actually close with the red X, just to make things interesting, but I consider everything still running unless I quit it with the menu. To actually quit an application, you use the top bar menu as I described. There are also some keyboard combinations to perform some shut downs, but the top bar is my preferred way, so I don't know all the keyboard shortcuts.

Games can be memory hogs. I don't recognize the game you mentioned, but in general games are heavy hitters on both calculating and memory.

Come back with any questions, we've all been there...

 

[IWT]

Is it cold in Scotland?

According to our relatives "cold as usual". But my wife and I retired to live in North Wales, and it's..wet at the moment.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Where about in North Wales, Ian? My wife and I visited there a few years ago, spent a week in the area renting a cottage near Rhyl and driving out each day--Llandudno, Caernarfon, Portmerion, Llanberis, Snowdonia, even to Chester, which is in England but a day's round trip from Rhyl.

 

[pm-r]

As you admit, as we all do, that you don't know what Roblox, and possibly others, is/are, therein may lie the problem ...

Just for one's information:

Roblox is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game that lets you play, create, and share games. Roblox is available on Windows, Mac OS X, and iOS and Android devices.

Roblox - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And as suggested, it might be a good time to learn how to set up another User on that Mac for the grandson to use:
[How to] Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

On your Mac, set up individual user accounts for multiple users, let occasional users log in as guests, or set up groups.

support.apple.com

He should not normally be using that Mac while you are logged in as the user!!! Unless of course, you have some reasons to allow him to do so.


- Patrick
=======

 

[IWT]

Where about in North Wales, Ian?

Deganwy. Equidistant from Conwy which we can see across the estuary; and Llandudno, along the coast. Still has a village feel though is changing as newer housing developments take over much of the surrounding countryside.

Thanks for asking, Jake.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Beautiful country up there, Ian. And having a view across the estuary must be spectacular.

 

[ckristoff]

Hello friends,
thank you all for your wonderful replies. It turns out that I have been rebooting my Mac on a daily basis, with the Reopen Windows, always unchecked.

However, I did gain some advice last night. Now I know what that dot means, under Finder and Safari means. I now know how to quit these items. However, I can now say, that Finder is always displayed on the top bar, to the left. Do I need to quit Finder as well, before I Shut down?

So I need to set up my Grandson, as a new user? Is it difficult?

Thank you, Frank.

 

[ckristoff]

Okay, it appears by good luck, I haven't been doing much wrong to my Mac.

My system is rebooted. So I went to look at Activity Monitor. I was surprised to see all the information there is still in the numbers. Is this stuff, the Mac is doing in the background? So I don't need to worry about it?

This is what I saw this morning, and I simply don't understand.

Physical Memory. 8.00GB

Memory Used. 2.65GB

Cached Files 1.87GB

App Memory. 1.36GB

Wired Memory 1.29GB


Another query I have, do I have to delete any cookies left on system? And where do I find them please?


Thank you, Frank.

 

[sllewk]

According to our relatives "cold as usual". But my wife and I retired to live in North Wales, and it's..wet at the moment.

Ian

Ian, When lived in Porthcawl South Wales for three and a half years we used to call rain "Liquid Welsh Sunshine". I was in the RAF at St Athens as a driving instructor. What an exciting three and a half years, best forgotten I feel. Completed a grand total of 22 years service in the RAF and visited RAF Valley a number of times.
All the very best from Keith in Derby.

 

[IWT]

However, I can now say, that Finder is always displayed on the top bar, to the left. Do I need to quit Finder as well, before I Shut down?

Hi Frank

Finder always resides in the DOCK. You have presumably chosen to have your Dock on the Left of your screen. In that case Finder will be at the very top. And, No, you do not - in fact cannot - close Finder. It is always open, either as a Window or in the background.

When you Shut Down, you click on the Apple Icon at the far left, top of screen and, from the drop down, select Shut Down. The computer will do just that.

When you Power Up, the Dock will appear and Finder will be open in the background, but not seen. That is, there will be a black dot as usual, just waiting for you to Click on it to open into Window.

BTW, you can arrange for the Dock to be on the Left, on the Right, or along the Bottom of your screen. I'm guessing here, but I think most people have it along the bottom especially if it's an iMac where the screen is larger than on MacBooks - your iMac is 27inches. This is changed by going into System Preferences > Dock and changing its layout to your satisfaction. You may well be happy where it is now. This was just for your information.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

My system is rebooted. So I went to look at Activity Monitor. I was surprised to see all the information there is still in the numbers. Is this stuff, the Mac is doing in the background? So I don't need to worry about it?

This is what I saw this morning, and I simply don't understand.

Physical Memory. 8.00GB

Memory Used. 2.65GB

Cached Files 1.87GB

App Memory. 1.36GB

Wired Memory 1.29GB


Another query I have, do I have to delete any cookies left on system? And where do I find them please?

Yes, Activity Monitor shows EVERYTHING that is running, including system processes that are part of the operating system for the Mac. Typically those processes don't have an icon in the far left column, whereas things you are running should have their icon there. Normally you don't have to worry about what is running, but when things go "strange" Activity Monitor is a good tool to see what is going on under the hood. To help you out, right now I have Messages, Mail, Activity Monitor, Calendar, Microsoft Outlook and Safari actively running, along with Finder, of course, and Activity Monitor says I have 555 processes and 1986 threads running.

As for memory, what you posted looks pretty good. The easiest way to know if there are memory issues is simply to look at the graph right next to the numbers, labelled "Memory Pressure." As long as it's green, you are in great shape. Again, if it goes yellow or red you can sort the users by clicking on the "Memory" header to see who the big hitters are and decide if you want to try to close them. Typically big graphic applications can use a lot of memory, as can virtual systems like Parallels or VMWare.

Yes, you have cookies. Whether or not you want to delete them is up to you. Some cookies tell websites how you like the site to be set up for you, some do some authentication that you are a previous user, etc. Some may track how many times you come back, or the like. I generally just leave cookies alone. If you want to delete them your browser may have some ability to do that. Safari, for example, can clear out cookies by going to History and then Clear History... The resulting window will allow you to select how far back you want history to be erased and it will clear the history of where you have been and the cookies it gathered for that time. There are third party programs that claim to clear cookies alone, leaving history in place, but I have never used any of them.

Hope that helped.

 

[IWT]

Safari, for example, can clear out cookies by going to History and then Clear History..

May I add a tiny bit to Jakes very clear summary, which can be useful? If you Click on History from the Top Menu Bar in Safari, a drop down menu shows "Clear History" at the Botton of the list - but - if you hold down the Option Key, "Clear History" becomes " Clear History and Keep Website Data".

Clicking on the latter means that all History & Cookies are removed except for those that are needed to identify you on crucial websites. This means that sites that might require a password or for you to sign/log in are preserved. Quite useful.

Ian

 

[pm-r]

So I need to set up my Grandson, as a new user? Is it difficult?

No, not difficult and the directions to do so were included in the link i provided in my #10 pos, and you will find the instructions under the Add a user heading at the same link here:

Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

On your Mac, set up individual user accounts for multiple users, let occasional users log in as guests, or set up groups.

support.apple.com

- Patrick
=======

 

[ckristoff]

Hello friends,
thank you for your recent messages. I'm afraid I haven't been here for a while. My wife and I are busy, with supervising his online schooling. Quite stressful, nothing beats being educated in the classroom.

My grandson is still playing Roblox on my Mac. Therefore he uses my Mac for his schooling. I don't have a laptop or tablet he can use.

Frank.