Should I Upgrade the RAM on my Mac?

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Level 1

12 points

Should I Upgrade the RAM on my Mac?

Hi,

I have a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with the 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM.

Recently I have noticed that it has been very slow in certain situations Such as when opening apps or dragging a document. This has only recently been the case and is obviously not the great. When the apps are open they perform perfectly such as games run smoothing but opening takes so long like Safari or Pages take around 2 min to open.

I don't have any start-up applications either and I always keep my computer cleaned up.

Is it worth changing the RAM to either a better 8GB or 16GB (Not sure if 16GB works as I have read it might not)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 1, 2020 1:30 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

John Galt

Level 10

146,252 points

Oct 1, 2020 4:57 AM in response to wilhelm273

It's very easy to determine if your Mac's performance is being limited by available memory. Please read Check if your Mac needs more RAM in Activity Monitor. If the "Memory Pressure" graph is frequently "red" your Mac will benefit from additional memory. If not, it won't. It's that simple.

Safari or Pages take around 2 min to open.

That's not normal and suggests a problem other than a memory limitation.

... I always keep my computer cleaned up.

That supports my suspicion of a different problem. "Cleaning" as applied to a Mac (or PC for that matter) is associated with popular marketing scams. If you are using, or have used at any time in the past, any non-Apple "anti-virus", "cleaning", or similarly categorized product, that would explain what you're experiencing. Those things are very popular, highly lucrative, and equally destructive.

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

146,252 points

Oct 1, 2020 7:28 AM in response to wilhelm273

Reinstalling macOS is nondestructive and simple enough to try, but I doubt it. For now please determine if the same problems occur in "Safe Mode": Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac.

I'd get rid of "CCleaner". It and things like it may have been purposeful fifteen years ago but those days are long gone. Now they only cause trouble.

Back up your Mac as a matter of course. To learn how to use Time Machine please read Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac. The symptoms you describe are consistent with impending disk failure.

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Answer 3

Oct 1, 2020 7:59 AM in response to wilhelm273

The general advice is that Macs running less than 6GB of RAM running El Capitan or later are stuck in a rut, and are simulating too much RAM on the Boot Drive. If that boot drive is also a slow rotating magnetic drive, you are doubly cursed.

So getting to or above 6GB is always worth doing, but once you are above that general level, you MUST, as John Galt suggests, use tools to check whether you are running desperately short and continuing to simulate needed RAM on the Boot drive. Additional RAM above that paging threshold is a diminishing return (except for Video or Photo Editing where the answer is always "never enough").

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