swap memory is getting used even I am not doing anything

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Level 1

4 points

swap memory is getting used even I am not doing anything

hi I am currently using MacBook Air m2 16/256 variant I was having a look on activity monitor and it says my swap memory is getting used even when I am not doing any task on it why does it happens ?

I thought lets give it a restart and yes then the swap thing was not there everything was fine couple weeks later again swap memory was getting after I ended my tasks not heavy tasks though just preview files and all ?

how many times a month we should restart the device

Posted on Nov 26, 2024 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

Mac Jim ID

Level 7

26,705 points

Nov 26, 2024 12:55 PM in response to omkar670

View Activity Monitor using the Memory tab and sort by usage to see which processes are consuming the most amount of RAM.

If you have any Cleaners or AntiVirus installed, then remove them.

Personally, I would recommend restarting the Mac once a month whether you are experiencing a problem or not. It surely won't hurt anything.

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Answer 2

Mac Jim ID

Level 7

26,705 points

Nov 26, 2024 1:03 PM in response to omkar670

If your Memory Pressure remains green, then the swaps are having no impact. In todays Operating Systems, they go by the assumption that unused RAM is wasted RAM, so you should expect to see a high usage of RAM and a small Swap is just an artifact of using as much RAM as possible. Seeing 25MB of swap or actually anything less the a GB is just part of doing business.

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Answer 3

KiltedTim

Level 10

203,908 points

Nov 26, 2024 12:46 PM in response to omkar670

Are you actually having performance problems?

If not, don’t stress over it. MacOS is UNIX based. Just let it manage things.

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

152,392 points

Nov 26, 2024 12:34 PM in response to omkar670

omkar670 wrote:

hi I am currently using MacBook Air m2 16/256 variant

Just to be sure, does 16/256 mean 16 GB RAM & 256 GB of drive storage? ... and is this a 2022 or 2023 MacBook Air model?

You mention that Activity Monitor indicates that Swap is being used "even when I am not doing any task." Regardless, Activity Monitor should be showing you a list of apps/processes that are using memory at any given point in time. Did you review these to see which are using the most?

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Answer 5

omkar670 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 26, 2024 12:56 PM in response to Tesserax

yes 16 gb ram and 256 gb ssd, I recently bought this MacBook, it hasn't even been a month yet ,like I bought it when 16 gb ram becomes the base variant and yes checked that what things are using my memory and it was most of the time the system things itself ,like windows server ,accessibility services like rn I am using safari so that too and swap is using only 25 mb but why? and can you tell me how often we should restart or shutdown the Mac because I only keep it on sleep mode?

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Answer 6

omkar670 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 26, 2024 1:11 PM in response to Mac Jim ID

understood,thankyou.

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