This article will show you how to check how much memory is currently in use on your Mac.
Steps
Step 1. Open a new Finder window
The Finder icon has a blue and white face and sits in a bar at the bottom of the Mac desktop.
Step 2. Select Applications in the left pane of the Finder
Step 3. Open the Utilities folder
It's a blue folder with the screwdriver and wrench icons at the bottom of the Applications folder.
Step 4. Double click on the System Monitor icon
This application has an icon that looks like a heart rate sensor.
Step 5. Click the Memory tab at the top of the window, next to the CPU tab
Step 6. Take a look at the Memory Load graph in the lower left corner of the System Monitor window
- If the load graph is green, then you still have enough memory.
- If the load graph is yellow, then the Mac is starting to use a lot of memory.
- If the load graph is red, then the memory is used at its limit. Close one or more applications. You might want to add more RAM to your Mac.
Advice
A few useful terms for understanding system monitoring readings:
- Physical memory is the total amount of memory available on the Mac.
- Memory used - the amount of used memory.
- Cached files - memory that was used by applications but is now available.
- Using a swap - memory borrowed by other applications.
- Program memory - the memory that applications are currently using.
- Reserved - memory that is reserved by applications and therefore not available to other services.
- Compressed - memory that has been compressed to increase the total memory.