I'm facing a persistent issue with my 2020 M1 MacBook that has 8GB of memory. I bought it in 2024, and since day one, it's been running out of application memory. I'm not super tech-savvy and don't fully understand what that means, but I can hardly keep more than one application open at a time, which is really limiting. I feel like I should be able to run Chrome and Discord simultaneously, especially since I only have a few tabs open. This memory issue isn't constant; it happens sometimes, even after restarting the computer. I can't figure out a specific limit for application memory usage, but it never seems to exceed 800 MB. Any advice on how to tackle this? I also tried to upload an image, but it failed. Just to clarify, I've run out of memory with only two applications open, totaling about 540 MB.
3 Answers
You might want to try using Safari instead of Chrome and see if the problem persists when Chrome is completely closed. Chrome can be quite a resource hog, and sometimes reinstalling it can help if it's causing issues.
Check the physical space on your drive to see how much memory is being taken up by temporary files and cache. I've experienced similar memory issues when my applications max out their quota due to accumulated temp files. Cleaning those up can help ease the strain.
First off, it's best to avoid using Chrome if possible. With only 8GB of RAM, you're limited in what you can run at once. Try to stick to one or two applications at a time to prevent memory problems.
I feel your pain! I got the same memory warning just from having File Explorer open, and it was under 200MB! This memory situation is frustrating.