Why does a brand new 2023 Apple Macbook Pro M2 keep running out of system memory?

I also do quite a bit of processor/RAM intensive work in Photoshop and other such apps. I wouldn't even consider a computer, Mac or Windows, with less than 32 GB of RAM.

You really only have two options. One is to sell your new Mac for as much as you can get for it and get a replacement with more RAM. Or, just don't have all of these app open all the time. If you're not using a given app, close it.

The RAM is part of the M2 chip, so cannot be upgraded.

You can return any undamaged Apple hardware within 14 days of the purchase date, no questions asked. If you're still within this time frame, your best bet would be to return the new Mac and order one with more RAM.

rzhooker wrote:

Hi everyone, I have a brand new Macbook M2 Pro (16GB 1TB) running on Ventura 13.3.1 that keeps saying it has run out of system memory whilst using a combination of Adobe Bridge, Illustrator, Indd, Photoshop, After Effects & Chrome.

There's your problem. Those Applications are notorious memory hogs.

You are in fact far exceeding the memory available to the Mac.

While older versions may have required less memory, newer versions require more, and just Chrome alone is capable of consuming most available RAM in many cases. Photoshop and After Effects will of course use a ton of memory for everything they do, specially if you are working with large photos and high quality videos.

There is no way to upgrade the RAM on Apple silicon Macs, what you buy it with is what it will have for ever.

Clearly an entry level Mac with 16GB of RAM is not enough for your particular workload.

As mentioned, if it's been less than 14 days since you purchased the Mac, return it, for a full refund, and get a model with more RAM.

This Mac doesn’t meet the recommended for some of the individual apps listed, much less for the aggregate load from the full list. I’d expect maybe 32 GB is workable here given SSD speeds, but for best performance per the Adobe recommended configurations, go 64 GB.

Adobe Bridge recommended:

16 GB of RAM for HD media and Substance 3D workflows

32 GB for 4K media or higher

Adobe Illustrator recommended:

8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended)

Adobe InDesign recommended:

Minimum 8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended)

Adobe Photoshop recommended:

16 GB or more

Adobe AfterEffects recommended:

32 GB

Google Chrome app: no memory minimums or recommended listed, but widely regarded as resource-intensive.

There are 2 reasons for the "Your system has run out of application memory" dialog box.

A) Your boot disk has very low free storage, and macOS cannot create page/swap files to offload virtual memory contents to disk. This is generally not the case, but I mention this because if you do have very low free storage, it might apply. Depending on how much virtual memory is being called for, anything under 50-100GB of free storage may trigger the message.

Apple menu (upper left corner) -> About This Mac -> Storage (tab)

B) A process (or set of processes) has asked macOS for excessive amounts of virtual memory address space. Virtual memory address space requires macOS to create Virtual Memory Page Tables in non-pageable kernel address space to keep track of the application virtual addresses given out. Generally, if there is a memory leak (process asks for a virtual address range, uses the addresses, forgets to give them back, asks for another virtual address range, uses the addresses, forgets again, wash, rinse, repeat), eventually there are so many non-pageable virtual memory page table entries trying to keep track of the virtual addresses, that macOS no longer has memory available for applications, and you get the "Your system has run out of application memory"

If you look at

Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor -> View (menu) -> All Processes -> Memory (tab)

you can see what processes are using lots of memory. Many of these processes will NOT be applications. Just background agents and daemons used to provide many of the macOS services, as well as 3rd party background processes doing whatever that 3rd party app thinks it should be doing.

Also keep in mind that each web browser tab will be a separate process running its own Javascript. If you have lots of browser tabs open, or if one of the browser tabs running Javascript with a bug in it, it is possible these browser tabs will add up to a lot of virtual memory demands, but no individual tab will look all that big.