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Forums › Mac OS › Is it true that current Mac OS wants to use all your RAM?
nongeek2025

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#315762 14-Aug-2024 12:53
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According to this article - whether you’ve got an entry-level MacBook with the bare minimum RAM or a tricked-out Mac Studio with all the RAM you could afford, macOS will help itself to using it all.

1. Is this true?
2. WHY would any operating system need to access all your RAM. WHAT is it doing?


https://www.howtogeek.com/mac-ram-usage-high-dont-worry-about-it/?

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freitasm
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  #3272205 15-Aug-2024 19:01
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nongeek2025:
RunningMan:

 

Do you have an actual problem you are trying to solve?

 



Yes. Clarification as to what Apple is doing with users RAM:
Gist of my original questions/concerns:
1. Is it true the Mac OS will use up to all of the RAM, regardless of how much RAM there is? (Answered in general by members who agree with this claim in the article - Yes)
2. Why? (I still do not understand why Apple OS will take over all unused RAM)
3. What is it doing with all this RAM? (Also unclear to me.)

 

     

  1. Yes
  2. Because using RAM to store pieces of data (cache) from storage is faster if any application needs that data later
  3. Applications use RAM. More applications use more RAM. Whatever is not used by applications is used by the OS to manage the state of the machine or used as a cache to make things faster. If these applications require more RAM than is available, the OS will automatically flush the cache to make space. If there is still insufficient space, the OS will temporarily swap some RAM to storage (memory used by inactive applications will be sent to storage, freeing up some RAM for more recent applications). If multiple applications require RAM at the same time and there's not enough RAM, the OS will swap as needed, causing the system to slow down.

 

 

 

One way to put it simply: more RAM always results in a happy, faster system. 




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