Q: Preview App memory leak

I probably should have changed it to flat color to save some RAM for Preview.

I am not a know-it-all. I am just trying to figure out where the problem is, even if I don't face the same issue.

As I've said, it is clear that Preview is using a lot of memory, way more than I think is reasonable.

Again, as I've said, I can see Preview using all that memory and then some - even above the 16GB of installed memory, even to the point of having GB of swap being used - and my mac does not run out of application memory, it does not crash, and is working fine just as I'm typing this message.

You can and should report to Apple that Preview is using too much memory. They may find a bug in there, or they simply make improvements to PDFKit (and they should!).

In the meantime, you may perhaps find some login item, kernel extension or other incompatible software on your mac that somehow leads to your system mishandling a low memory situation, to the point of being unable to function. That is not something that Apple should or could do.

I was actually criticising dialabrain, not you.

I don't know where the problem is in my system. I pointed to preview because the "Out of memory" window marks it as the problematic application. It might well be another program or kext that doesn't free its memory on request, but I don't know how to check.

For sure the memory needed by PDFKit is unreasonable (and in spite of this very large amount of memory used, the scrolling/zooming is very far from being smooth on my system).

I would be eager to help Apple diagnosing the problem, if they responded to my bug report. I can't try on a fresh OS because this is my production machine.

Did they ever respond to your bug report? I've been having the same exact problem with Preview and several apps that rely on the PDF Kit (TexShop and Texpad).

No, they recently marked it as duplicate of bug 23501513 so now I don't have any knowledge of the status.

Yes that's correct. Just use Foxit reader it is much better solution specially if you want to open multiple pdf files.

Just want to confirm that I have the same issues of ridiculous memory usage with PDFkit applications (Preview, Skim, TeXShop).

I open one 1Mb document in Preview.  Use it for a few minutes and Activity Monitor says Preview is using 4.5Gb RAM.  I open a couple more, and it quickly balloons out to 13Gb!  Something's seriously awry.  Even when I Ctrl-Q close Preview, Activity Monitor reports it still using 13Gb.  Keeping Preview closed, I restart Activity MOnitor and Preview is still using 13Gb --- when it shouldn't be in memory at all.  Worse thing is that the product specialist I was speaking to, Sunny Pillai, seems to have dodged the issue and didn't reply to subsequent emails about the ballooning RAM.

Preview uses an inordinate amount of memory, that much is clear.

But if it still appears in Activity Monitor that means the application did not quit. If it doesn't quit you may have to force-quit it. Press command-option-esc, select it from the list and click Force Quit.

I'm still having this issue. Both Skim and Preview end up taking 4-5gb of memory after an hour or so of doing nothing with an open pdf.

The bug is known and it's problem with PDFKit in OSX, it was already reported to Apple by the Skim devs and others: https://sourceforge.net/p/skim-app/bugs/1076/#967c ... Apple hasn't fixed it, despite being 8 months old and despite APple releasing several El Capitan updates since then.

To everyone in here experiencing it, please report it to Apple! The more people reporting it, the more chances of Apple actually fixing it:

https://bugreport.apple.com/

I used to use Skim for all my Latex write-ups. This bug made it impossible to use for longer periods, I regret updating to El Capitan.

p.s. I'm amazed how much @dialabrain managed to twist this thread ... sad

I filed a bug report for this issue back in March 2016, which was eventually closed down since it was a duplicate of the original bug (#22732752). If you go ahead and submit a bug report, then be sure to reference the report #22732752 as well.

I appreciate all the tips about Foxit reader. I have version 2.1.0804 and it looks sharp on my retina screen, as well as using far less memory than Preview. It would be perfect if it had an option to open a document in a new window instead of a tab, but on the whole I'd rather have tabs than multiple windows.