Hi Apple Community,
I'd like to know what these cache files are and apparently, when I checked Activity Monitor it takes up a LOT of space. Is there a "way" to remove those?
And what is "Swap Used"? Sometimes I see it takes up some memory capacity, sometimes it doesn't. How does it work and what does it do in the long run?
I'm using a mac mini 2020, M1 16GB
Thank you!
Mac mini 2018 or later
Swap = hard disk memory used by the system when RAM fills up. If you have a later Mac, it’s almost as good as RAM because of the high speed SSD. Your system isn’t even near the RAM limit, can ignore.
Cached Files = work files used frequently by the OS and various apps including Safari. I don’t worry about it; percentage-wise it uses roughly the same for my 8 GB mini. It also helps performance. Clearing Cache on Safari doesn’t affect this number significantly, neither does closing files and quitting apps. I’d forget about it.
Swap = hard disk memory used by the system when RAM fills up. If you have a later Mac, it’s almost as good as RAM because of the high speed SSD. Your system isn’t even near the RAM limit, can ignore.
Cached Files = work files used frequently by the OS and various apps including Safari. I don’t worry about it; percentage-wise it uses roughly the same for my 8 GB mini. It also helps performance. Clearing Cache on Safari doesn’t affect this number significantly, neither does closing files and quitting apps. I’d forget about it.
Cached Files and Swap Used in mac's memory
