Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

tweek1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 10, 2014
3
0
Can someone let me know if my RAM usage is okay? I have nearly 7GB of RAM taken up with only Safari, Mail, and Activity Monitor running. This seems excessive to me.

Screenshot of Activity Monitor: http://i.imgur.com/apYrsjp.png

I have a 2014 MBA w/ 8GB RAM and the i5 processor. I am running Yosemite Public Beta 2.

Thanks for your help!
 
Last edited:

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,302
19,283
It looks perfectly fine. Your system is currently around 5GB RAM (because it can) and the memory pressure is green, which means that there is no starving for RAM. The memory pressure is the most important indicator. As long as its green, nothing else matters.
 

tweek1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 10, 2014
3
0
It looks perfectly fine. Your system is currently around 5GB RAM (because it can) and the memory pressure is green, which means that there is no starving for RAM. The memory pressure is the most important indicator. As long as its green, nothing else matters.

So it isn't like if I only had 4gb RAM I wouldn't be able to run all of this stuff, but that since I have extra RAM the system uses it?
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,485
4,413
Delaware
Exactly right.
If you give your OS X system more RAM, it will use it.

It's just something that you don't need to be concerned about - unless:
your memory pressure goes from yellow into red, or
you see a lot a swapping going on, or
you experience dramatic drops in performance.
Those three items might all likely happen together.

Otherwise - use your Mac, be happy… :D
 

tweek1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 10, 2014
3
0
Exactly right.
If you give your OS X system more RAM, it will use it.

It's just something that you don't need to be concerned about - unless:
your memory pressure goes from yellow into red, or
you see a lot a swapping going on, or
you experience dramatic drops in performance.
Those three items might all likely happen together.

Otherwise - use your Mac, be happy… :D

Awesome, thank you!
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,302
19,283
So it isn't like if I only had 4gb RAM I wouldn't be able to run all of this stuff, but that since I have extra RAM the system uses it?

Well, it would be interesting to test this out ;) I suspect that the RAM usage will be lower on a 4GB machine, maybe at a expense of a very slight reduction in responsivity.

If you are curious about the details, try running the command vm_stat in the Terminal. OS X RAM management (which is inherited from FreeBSD) is insanely complicated.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.