How to fix memory leaks Monterey

macOS Monterey memory leak problem and solution

Recently, a serious problem has occurred on macOS Monterey system that has troubled many users - a memory leak bug. Some applications consume a lot of memory (RAM), causing the system to pop up a warning of "out of application memory". This article will explain the severity of this problem and the solution.

How memory leaks affect your work

Before discussing memory leaks, let's briefly explain what memory is and why we need to pay attention to it. Each Mac has a certain amount of memory, also known as RAM, which enables the Mac to run a certain number of tasks simultaneously. Have you noticed that when you open many tabs and applications, your Mac starts lagging and slowing down? This may be a RAM issue. Modern Macs are powerful enough to handle many intensive tasks, but there is always a limit.

When a memory leak occurs, your application uses more and more RAM over time without freeing it. The memory leak that appears in macOS Monterey is definitely a system bug, because it is impossible for your application to use that much RAM. For example, one user reported using 26GB of memory in their control center, which is more than a third of the total RAM. This is outrageous. Normally, control center activities do not waste more than 50MB of memory.

Image from Twitter

Memory leaks can cause macOS Monterey to freeze. Not a literal freeze. Your Mac will continue to work, but you won't be able to run the application and do what you normally do. So you need to fix this issue as soon as possible.

Apps showing memory leaks on macOS Monterey

The first case of memory leaks on Monterey was reported on Twitter on October 28. From the report, Final Cut Pro and Adobe applications are the main reasons for this problem, as they use about 30GB of RAM together. Later, other reports revealed issues with Apple's Pages, Control Center, and Keynote applications, which often use a small amount of RAM. It now seems that various applications on Monterey can cause memory leaks, including native Apple apps and third-party apps.

What if it is not a bug?

If you see the system prompt "out of application memory", this does not necessarily mean that this is a bug. Maybe your Mac does run too many applications, or your boot disk has little space to run the application. In this case, you have to exit some active processes, or even free up disk space to resolve the issue.

How to distinguish between memory leak bugs and normal RAM issues? Typically, applications use megabytes of RAM, not gigabytes. You may have some applications that use up to 5GB, but any application that exceeds this value should cause suspicion. In other words, when an application uses tens of GB of RAM, this is definitely a memory leak.

iStat Menus is a great app for monitoring RAM in real time, which helps to understand the amount of memory commonly used. If there are any red flags, you will quickly identify them.

It's worth mentioning that if you're using a Mac with only 4GB of RAM, you may get a warning that "apps are out of memory" often. We recommend using at least 8GB of RAM to run some intensive processes simultaneously. So if you're using a 4GB Mac, consider adding some extra memory.

How to Fix Low RAM and Memory Leaks on Mac

Whether it is a system bug or an effective RAM issue, there are some measures that can be taken to solve this problem. It is best to use Setapp because it has some necessary tools to reduce RAM and CPU usage. Let's see what they are.

Exit the background application

Quit All is a simple and powerful utility that perfectly performs one action - exit the application. You can choose to exit a specific application that has a lot of RAM usage, or exit all active applications at once.

When your Mac has insufficient RAM, the warning you will see will suggest force exiting some apps. This is not always the best practice, as you may lose some of the changes you made in the open file. Quit All provides you with a safer solution.

What we like most is that Quit All can display and let you exit all applications running in the background. They usually consume Mac resources for no reason, so it would be great if you can exit them with one click.

Update or uninstall the application

If you notice that some applications always take up too much RAM, follow these steps:

1. Open CleanMyMac X and click Updater
2. Select all applications
3. Click Update

Updating applications can often resolve their wrong behavior, and you may see that they use much less RAM and CPU after the update. If this is not the case, consider uninstalling these resource-intensive applications. CleanMyMac X also has this feature. Simply select Uninstaller in the left menu to uninstall multiple applications in one click.

Free up some space

Insufficient disk space may indeed be the reason you receive a warning about application memory. Unfortunately, freeing up a lot of disk space on your Mac is not easy, as most of the files that take up that space are hidden deep in the operating system.

CleanMyMac X is the best tool to free up disk space by removing all system debris, old logs, document versions, and more. We recommend running a quick scan at least once a month.

Reduce CPU usage

The lower the CPU usage, the less memory it needs. App Tamer can help save CPU by slowing down or exiting CPU-intensive applications. It runs in the background, so you don't really have to do anything - just install it on your Mac and update it in real time how much CPU it saves.

Tip: If your RAM problem is serious and it seriously affects your work, a quick fix is ​​to go to App Tamer and click "Include important system processes". It is generally not recommended to slow down system processes as they keep the Mac running, but it can help uninstall memory if there is a memory leak bug.

Alternatively, you can install CPU and GPU monitors via iStat Menus to track CPU consumption and manually control the most resource-consuming applications.

Setapp has iStat Menus, CleanMyMac X, App Tamer, and Quit All — so you can try it for 7 days for free and then pay $9.99 per month to continue using it. If you are new to Setapp, it is a productivity platform for Mac and iPhone, combining features of over 230 apps to help you get more work done.

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