NEW MacBook Air M1 8gb 256gb: "your system has run out of application memory"

I have the 16GB M1 mac mini and I get the same thing. The RAM is absolutely not the issue. You shouldn't hit that error until all of your swap memory is also used, i.e., not only are you filling up your RAM, but also the remainder of the storage on your disk (in my case 420GB of extra space). I'm guessing the real issue is a memory leak somewhere. The fact that they would suggest you upgrade the RAM for this issue is pretty insane though, and seems very dishonest. Hopefully their product team is aware of this issue.

Welcome, aglasgow1, to Apple Support Communities!

«Especially when I'm low on disk space» is a completely expected time for this warning!

Additionally, under that condition, if no action is taken, such can, indeed, lead to a «kernel panic», since the kernel can get into a “bind” without any recourse!

This last point is the reason for always making sure you have something like 25 GB, or more, Available on your system drive, at all times.

I have 16 gb memory & 1 TB. I get this error as well. I don't have that many applications running too.

I traded up from my MacBook Pro mid 2014 with soldered in 8 gb memory 512 mb because of this constant error.

Re-installed Big Sur after talking to Apple , didn't help when I called again yesterday they said applications these days take up a lot of memory!

Kind of annoying when all the videos on You tube were doing lots of speed tests and saying this is great!

What is the better browser Chrome or Firefox please?

Hoping new applications are more compatible but spend big money here and very disappointed.

Welcome, Laudify, to Apple Support Communities!

Where are you being told this claim of «“100mb of ram available” on a 16gb ram computer».

I, similarly, have a 16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, M1 Mac mini.

I am not at all surprised that all my (16GB) RAM is being used, along with many GBs of “swap” (Virtual Memory [VM]) being used, when I’m doing my work.

I expect no less.

Unless one is woefully underutilizing your computer, you should never have any «ram available»!

(I predict that it won’t be too many years before we are talking about TBs of RAM [or its, then, equivalent], and PBs [thousands of TBs] of “drive” storage space. We won’t have free “RAM”, then, either!)

I think I was having this exact same issue. It looked like even relatively simple processes were causing me to get "out of memory" issues and app crashes. I was trying to export a Photos slideshow as a video and it would cause the memory usage to skyrocket - starting at 2GB usage and ramping up quickly to 40GB usage indicated on the activity monitor. This is interesting since I only have 8GB or ram. The memory pressure graph looked like Ayers Rock (or Uluru if you prefer)... a huge plateau extending WAY into the red until the app finally crashes every time.

Anyway... I just updated to the new Big Sur 11.2 update and I was able to execute this Photos export for the very first time with no issue. The memory pressure graph held steady around 4GBs the whole time. I think this update may have fixed the memory issue. At least I'm hoping it did!

Jeffrey Hughes3 wrote:

…

Anyway... I just updated to the new Big Sur 11.2 update and I was able to execute this Photos export for the very first time with no issue. The memory pressure graph held steady around 4GBs the whole time. I think this update may have fixed the memory issue. At least I'm hoping it did!

By the way, «The memory pressure graph» is not in units of GBs.

The graph, itself, is in units of %.

Additionally, the color of the graph is not directly related to the level of the graph. (It exhibits some hysteresis: going Yellow or Red at lower graph levels when the graph has a positive slope [increasing, rising], and back down to Green or Yellow at higher graph levels when the graph has a negative slope [decreasing, falling]. The color probably takes the rate of “swapping” [page-faults] into account. [I do wish that Activity Monitor would include such rate information.])

Jeffrey Hughes3:

I, too, have noticed an improvement in Virtual Memory (VM) handling.

I had a process that would, under 11.1, reliably cause swapfiles to proliferate (causing the «"your system has run out of application memory"» error, if one was too close to filling the drive).

With 11.2, that proliferation of swapfiles doesn’t happen, at least, not for that process.

I just picked up the base model MacBook Air M1 3 days ago and get the error message "webpage using significant memory" every time I stream a video or browse the internet... with 1 tab open. I had a video shut down 3 times. I'm ready to return the laptop....

I had a mid 2014 MacBook Pro with soldered in 8 gb Ram, 512 gb HD storage. I was getting this same "your system is running out of application memory". I purchased the MacBook Air with 16 gb & 1 TB . I used my Time Machine back up of the 2014 MacBook Pro to migrate all my files and applications over to the new one. I then downloaded Big Sur.

I had seen so many videos on YouTube showing people running many programs and tabs in Safari. Almost immediately I got the error as above to my shock. I called Apple a few times but the best advise was from the first representative I spoke too. Re-install Big Sur without deleting everything.

It worked great and I have not had the problem again. I watch my Memory pressure on the Activity Monitor right now I am running PS, LR, Safari with ten tabs and Firefox with six tabs, Ibooks , iTunes , Messages, Calendar , Apple Mail and others and the memory pressure is low. Right now the Memory is 11.81 gb (out of 16 gb) and this machine is lightening fast. I use Topaz filters and they operate swiftly. I re-boot every few days and the initial memory is reduced to 6 gb. I am very happy with this machine. It still has a few bugs, my SpyderPro5 keeps saying it is not running but is. To get my Topaz and Nik plugins to work in PS I have to go through Bridge. Topaz customer service says they are working on fix and will have it shortly. Adobe also says they are working on fixes. Hope that helps.

I have the same on my I7 iMAc2020 with 24Gb memory and a sdd of 1TB, where almost 500Gb was free. I was using Final Cut Pro, it was using almost 125Gb. On my old late 2009 imac, i had this never . ;) Othber opened apps where Firefox, 320Mb, Skitch 57mb and Finder 67Mb.

So, baltusf, did «Final Cut Pro» actually present you with the “your system has run out of application memory" error message? Or did it simply quit? Or are you simply noting the “Memory” value you could see, for «Final Cut Pro», within the Memory tab of Activity Monitor?

Is your «I7 iMAc2020 with 24Gb memory and a sdd[sic] of 1TB» running Big Sur? Latest version?

If so, are you running the latest version of «Final Cut Pro»?

Keep getting this error as well. I have a MacBook Air 500 MB, 8GB RAM running Catalina. Tried many potential fixes...nothing worked. Annoying message pops up in the middle of work, have to close what I'm doing, etc. Gave up and bought M1 1TB, 16GB running Big Sur. Transferred everything using Migration assistant. Same error popping up!! Ugh. @Apple - please weigh in.

Alanportable wrote:

hi did you find a solution; I am having the same issue with Mac mini M1

though it was incpmatable plugins ,worked ok for a few hours then went back

While there is no one “solution”, yet, I recommend that you read through this entire Discussion—paying special attention to High Level users.

You should find, then, some useful pointers, pertaining to various potential causes of such issues: especially in cases where the Application involved is a web-browser.

i have been experiencing the same issue and have the 16gb MBA.

I am also finding that it is shutting down my browser so I’m losing all my tabs and I’m getting screen freeze and flickering.

yes I have a lot of tabs open and yes I use extensions which is why I bought the 16gb. I never had this message with my old 4gb MB Air.

I solved the issue, sort of, it seems to do with importing video files, large amounts, so now i just import 3/4 files at a time... Seems to be a bug with final cut, also i uninstalled all plugins not compatable with apple silicon...