Macbook M1 Pro 2021 memory leak

I support more than 100 macs and this issue has been driving me crazy. This is what I have found and how I have resolved the issue thus far.

1. The only systems that I have had issues with are systems that have migrated users and applications from an Intel based mac. System with new users and freshly installed applications have had no issues for me
2. I create a fold in the shared user profile named migration and copy all user data here.
3. I create a new profile/user account
4. Manually copy the data from the migration folder ie desktop, documents, etc
5. Delete the original user profile

This has worked for me without fail thus far. I did not run the numbers, but I believe approx 20 percent of the intel to m1 migrations have had this issue. To avoid this going forward I am avoiding the migration assistant and just copying data and installing the software etc.

I have tested m1 to m1 migrations and so far I have not had any issue, I have not tested m1 to intel or had the need to do that as of yet.

I hope this helps and I hope this continues to work for me

FIXED! I spoke w Apple support and they said I just needed to upgrade to newest Monterey 12.1 (21C52). Even though my Macbook 14 inch is brand new - and I didn't see an "Update" available in the software updates....I finally was able to see an update appear after waiting a few minutes at the Settings--> Software Update screen. The update was 3.2GB and took 15 minutes to download and install. Ever since software update, I am not seeing the "Out of memory" error popup. Yahooooo!

I manage approx 100 of these, and the issue that I have had is migrating directly from intel model to m1. approx 20 percent had issues. My resolve that worked was a clean profile and manually moving the data files to the new profile and deleting the previous.

I have a m1 MacBook Air that I got in November 2021. I complete agree with your comments about Apple's lack of care/concern or consideration of this GLARING issue! People are paying way to much money to work on a computer that has memory leak issue that harken you back to 2004! I will say, after completely restoring and manually moving all my files over as suggested, it did work for a while. My problem with the ram issues are website loaded on Safari. I have always used Safari, it has always been my main and only browser. Not anymore. I was reading a simple article and it said that the website (only one of two tabs) was using significant resources. Well, I opened up activity monitor and it was close to 6gbs of my ram used for it! Crazy! I nearly lost it but I tried that same website and like six others on FireFox (Apple Silicate one) and it was like 900mbs for like 7 websites, which sounds normal to me! So it seems the M1 issue is connected to Safari Browser to me. What about you guys? This is why I use my Dell laptop for work stuff, I don't have time for this non-sense. I have 16gbs of ram, 1tb hd, MacBook Air and Apple told me, "Sorry we cannot help you unless you upgrade to Monteray! They need to fix M1, Safari, and Big Sur before I would even consider it. Window 10 doesn't seem bad at all after this experience. It will definitely be my last Mac. I would rather use Linux instead of a Mac..For work I use Windows 10 Pro on my Dell. Works amazing. No issues. 16gbs of RAM with a 11th Gen i3.

I have narrowed this very real issue to Safari 15.x.

I have 64GB of RAM and memory goes to <500MB when running six open tabs and after refreshing the open tabs multiple times!

Shutting down Safari returns most of the memory to the pool.

Running Chrome with the same tabs does not consume memory to this degree and there's no leak I can see.

I saw the memory leak on a base model m1 mini. Just sitting there, running nothing but istats menus, it would run out of memory (8GB) after a couple of weeks.

The latest OS updates have fixed the leaks. The mini has been running for over a month, no problem. Now I’m willing to use it.

Just updating, I noticed some improvement after I updated the OS from Monterey 12.1 to 12.2. It's still not perfect, with high memory usage, but it's much better, with no leaks so far. It keeps around 7GB, in the yellow range, almost the whole day.

Hi DaSteinhoff,

Sorry to hear about the issues you're experiencing on your new Mac: it definitely shouldn't be running slow with the applications you've described, especially since Pixelmator has been fully optimised for the M1. Could there be any applications running in the background that you're maybe not aware of? If so, when the machine next runs slow for you, could you share a picture of your activity monitor usage, ie: both CPU and GPU usage? That might help me isolate down what could be causing the slowdown.

As an aside, since you're running 12.1 and are still experiencing issues I'd advise doing a clean install of the OS, and if the slowdown still persists after that, then I'd recommend booking an appointment at your nearest Apple store.

Best Regards,

I just posted more details below

Clean profile simply create a new account and manually move the data to it in a nutshell.

this has worked for me every time so far, and I hope it continues. my best guess is it is a software issue and it is not migrating the settings properly from a intel to m1 via migration assistant.

I did what he said and I did a fresh instal of the latest Big Sur and I will say, I did notice an improvement. But to transfer all the photos and videos, I’ll have to take some time to remove duplicate photos and videos. Website seems to behave better.

Just updated to 12.2.1 and that took care of it, for what I can tell.

I have been posting for a while that the memory leak seems fixed. I have m1 mini w/8GB RAM, m1 iMac, and m1 max mbp. my MBP has not required a reboot ever. It took 5 or 6 weeks for the m1 class machines to need to be rebooted as memory grew to 3GB Free and 6GB+ of swap used and system monitor showing no particular process using absurd amount of memory.

I have never experienced slowness some describe. these machines do fly at everything I do.

I have safari open with several windows and many tabs. I have apple mail open forever, and I archive emails, never delete. On the iMac. Also three Numbers spreadsheets that I update severall times a day, the biggest one with 1700 rows. I am running quicken 24/7, and the iMac serves as a local LAN based iTunes media server - I also have the TV App open 24/7.

I have Docker Desktop installed on the three, which creates a 2GB RAM virtual machine to run containers within. otherwise, the TV App is most RAM usage at 600MB, DropBox 470M, Quicken 400MB, Numbers 200MB. 0 swap used, 5GB+ free RAM. Uptime is > 3 days since last software update.

The mini is a backup iTunes media server, but I have nothing running on it. I have not considered it stable to use for my production needs. The memory leak is way better after recent software updates, but 24/7/365, it runs out of RAM, running only istats menus and Remote Desktop to it (it's headless). It was running out of RAM after 2-3 weeks. Now it tuns out after 6-8 weeks. Doing nothing at all, basically.

My MBP is used heavily for software development. I have VS Code running 24/7 on it, though I do close the lid when not in use.

The ones that run out of RAM do have external USB 3 or Thunderbolt drives attached...

I have an m1 iMac (16GB of RAM) using Monterey. With Safari I have lots of GB of Ram sucked up with each tab. If I switch to the Brave Browser, that issue goes away. Just a thought. Outside of that issue, love the mind blowing speed of this vs my 2010 i7 iMac running Big Sur. Not sure why you wouldn't upgrade to Monterey from Big Sur.

Mark