Suddenly, as of 11.6 and 11.6.1, my 2020 MBP M1 with 16GB of RAM is running out of memory every few days. I have attached screenshots that show, that Safari is culprit. The Force Quit Applications window says that Safari is using 402.4 MB but Activity Monitor shows that just one Safari tab (Amazon) is taking up 3.15 GB of memory. The NY Times is 2.46 GB.
What is going on? 🤔
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.6
I am suspicious of this:
[Loaded] Gemini Menu Launcher Site (MacPaw Inc. - installed 2021-11-02)
Modern Login Item
/Applications/Gemini 2.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/Gemini Menu Launcher Site.app
MacPaw is famous —or infamous—for "CleanMyMac," an unneeded "cleaning" app that is proven here to slow Macs. I've also seen at least 25 reports here over the last six month where users were getting spurious "out of memory" reports that stopped once CleanMyMac was removed. Same developer, so that makes me wonder. And suspicious.
You have no need for App Cleaner either.
When I worked in law enforcement, we called this a "clue":
Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:
Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)
Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (44) 2.27 GB (Google, Inc.)
com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (11) 1.78 GB (Apple)
Airtable Helper (4) 290 MB (Formagrid Inc.)
Google Chrome 165 MB (Google, Inc.)
WhatsApp Helper (Renderer) (2) 161 MB (WhatsApp Inc.)
Surprise! There's your friend Chrome's minion "helper" wanting a huge chunk of RAM. However, immediately below it is a very high value for a component of WebKit, the underlying technology in Safari. That could be due to one or more of your Safari extensions acting badly. You can test by turning off all extensions and then reenabling them one at a time as your check for the return of issues issues at each stage.
I see what to appear to be multiple login/password apps that may be competing. Never a good thing. What can you live without? Slim is good.
2021-11-05 00:59:30 photoanalysisd High CPU Use
Executable: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PhotoAnalysis.framework/Versions/A/Support/photoanalysisd
This is a common resource usurper. See this third-party article for what this is and how to live with it:
The VM use summary reflects all this stuff I've mentioned:
Virtual Memory Information:
Physical RAM: 16 GB
Free RAM: 15 MB
Used RAM: 15.53 GB
Cached files: 468 MB
Available RAM: 483 MB
Swap Used: 7.53 GB ⚠️
With 16GB of physical RAM, no report should show such a high value for Swap Used (one of two key metrics for evaluating RAM use) even after seven days, your last restart.
I just ran Etrecheck on an M1 MBP running Monterey that has only 8GB RAM and hasn't been restarted in nine (9) days. Its Swaps Used value: 8MB. That is roughly 1/10th of one percent of what yours is demanding after only seven days. That screams that something software-related is seriously wrong with one or more of your third-party apps/utilities and/or your Safari extensions.
Sadly that's something I suddenly have to do now. 😟
I used to go 3-5 days without restarting. Now I have to do it more frequently, I believe I have gone three days now.
Here's my Etrecheck report.
And as you well should know, nine out of 10 software makers don't supply uninstallers. 🙄
MBP M1 with 16GB is running out of memory constantly
