I get this message after I came back to my mac after several hours away. How is this possible? No changes in the applications I’m running and there are no other ones I use for writing or audio work etc. — I left my mac idle with just the basics, shown in the window, running. WT—?
If this is really true, that’s really sad. Never got this before.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
That's often due to a rogue process, and that rogue process is often adware. Since it's been resolved though I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. If it happens again it's worth investigating.
A memory-intensive process may not appear in that dialog, because it only suggests apps—and as you can see none of them are using anything near an exorbitant amount of RAM. Both processes and apps will appear in Activity Monitor.
Although rebooting a Mac is simple enough if something odd should occur, it's completely ok to leave it up and running for days, weeks, or months at a time.
I relaunched the Finder. Closed that window. I always leave my mac on. Put it in sleep mode when I’m away. Aside from time away for travel, it’s been running nonstop for well-on four years without a problem. Now this shows up. Would be understandable if I left my audio editing program and image editing program running, or a browser open but nothing like that. Only these what seems to me low-memory programs.
So I don’t know, maybe just another mystery of the island.
If your Mac is always on (join the club), RAM doesn’t get discharged - and just builds up over time. Especially if your software is always on.
The best solution? Boot your Mac once a week or so. That flushes the RAM, and speeds up processes overall.
poikkeus1, that is what I usually do. But for some reason this week, was going to be different. But thanks for the explanation and the reboot tip. I try to do that and close apps from time to time except the ones I need to run, but some of them “hide” and you have to flush ‘em out of the weeds, so to speak.
If I may point out, why do you leave your computer on all the time? Does the issue resolve itself if you restart the computer?
Out of application memory? Seriously? Now?
