2019 16" Macbook Pro super high Ram usage little running

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2019 16" Macbook Pro super high Ram usage little running

Hi,

I just got my Late 2019 16" (base model) i7/16GB/512GB. I usually run Windows in a VM using Parallels and my last MBP was 32GB to provided plenty of Ram. Right now I am finding that with NOTHING running (no apps, no VM no updates for DropBox etc) literally just powering on the MBP and logging in I am consistently seeing RAM usage (via Activity Monitor) or 11.0GB-12.0GB of the Ram used with only 4GB remaining...why in the world would this be when nothing is running?

I have installed Bootcamp and have an instance of Windows 10 running and when booted up and logged in under the exact same scenario...it's only using 2GB-3GB with 13-14GB of available left? Why would this be SO different?

Thanks,

Derek

Posted on Feb 4, 2020 8:35 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,152 points

Feb 4, 2020 9:06 AM in response to dschaaf68

Staring about Mac OS 10.9 or 10.10, Apple changed its memory allocation scheme to follow the concept of "unused RAM is wasted RAM. "Free" RAM is not a useful metric for OSX since that change. Current metrics indicating RAM stress are, from Activity Monitor, Memory Pressure and Swap Used:

Pressure should be in the green and Swap Used should the under 500MB.

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