Preview not working - using too much memory
Whenever I try to open anything with Preview, the system jams up and the Force Quit Applications box eventually comes up indicating "Your system has run out of application memory" and showing that Preview is "(not responding)" but using 80+ GB of memory. This happens whether I try to view a PDF, jpg or any other file that defaults to Preview. If I force quit Preview, everything runs fine, and I'm perfectly able to open up these pdfs, jpgs and other files using other programs such as browsers, etc.
I have a 2023 Mac mini M2 with 8GB memory running Ventura 13.2.1 and for the first several months since I purchased this set up Preview has worked perfectly fine -- this issue just started a couple weeks ago but won't go away.
Mac mini (M2, 2023)