macOS 26 Tahoe: System runs out of application memory (M4 Pro, 48 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD)

Alex Kim wrote:

Hope they fix this very soon...

This happens every year, and has happened every year for at least a decade. I'm not talking about Apple. I'm talking about end users thinking Apple is going to "fix this very soon". This is not going to happen.

Most likely, this problem is caused by some 3rd party system modification that isn't compatible with Tahoe. Anyone experiencing this problem won't see any improvement until they remove the software that causes it, or the developers of said software notice the problem and fix it. Unfortunately, much such software was already abandoned years ago.

It definitely won't be fixed in Tahoe. Tahoe is already dead. Apple is already hard at work on macOS 27 that will introduce a whole new set of bugs, just like these, that users will be complaining about in early fall 2026.

Note that this forum is for Users helping Users. Apple engineers may see these comments, but there's no guarantee.

At this point, I haven't seen any fixes across the internet for this issue, but it's easy to avoid by quitting running apps before putting the machine to Sleep. At least that's worked for me.

Use the Feedback Assistant app on your Mac to submit your feedback to Apple directly.

I've upgraded to 26.1 with high hopes, but no joy. Launching Mail still runs wild through memory. I've opened Activity Monitor after a restart, and Mail is using 11 GB of memory to start. It goes up to 103GB of memory including swapping before "pausing" Mail, and requiring a force quit. Then, I have to force quit Activity Monitor as well.

Meanwhile, on my 2024 Apple MacBook Air with an M3 chip and 24 GB of aphyciacl memory running 15.1, opening Mail shows that it takes a total of 89.2 MB - not gigabytes, but megabytes - of memory to run the Mail app.

I have not seen or heard a solution other than "gosh, you must have some old extensions out there". Sorry, but I think this is a Tahoe 26 issue.

Since I was seeing the same bad behaviour triggered by safari and photos, it seems unlikely that all 3 programs have the same bug, and an application bug shouldn’t be able to prevent other applications being resumed.

yes, google’s inefficient memory usage may well make chrome disproportionately likely to trigger the problem, but it appears the issue is in how macOS recovers from the OOM state

Yes, it's a temporary glitch, a simple restart would likely fix this.

Problem seems to have gone away in OS 26.1

Like the others, I'm getting the "your system has run out of memory" and a Force Quit dialog. I can't open Activity Monitor because of this. I'm using a 2022 Mac Studio with an M1 chip, running 26.0.1, have 32 GB of RAM and a 2 TB hard drive with 1.3 TB available. When I've checked Activity Monitor, memory used has never been more than 10 GB. This had not been happening on this machine using these same applications before the install of 26.0 or 26.0.1.

Hard not to blame the software . . . .

I just replaced a macMini late 2018 running on intel with 16GB RAM with an M4 MacBook Pro with 16GB. Everything on the mini was migrated to the Pro. My few extensions and all. The macMini never had this problem. The M4 should eat the macMini's lunch, yet it is running out of application memory! It has to be an OS issue with Tahoe.

This has happened to me TWICE now.

2021 M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM.

Both times the same... when laptop screen was closed for several hours / overnight.

Very easy to get back to a working state, and I've been monitoring Memory Usage in Activity Monitor after this second incident, but so far, nothing apparent has shown up.

This definitely feels like a "Tahoe" issue, not specific to any one app, or the same thing would have happened prior to upgrading to Tahoe, right? An app may need to be updated for compatibility, though. Just don't know which one is at fault yet.

not Apple’s responsibility to make macOS compatible with everything.

Disagree because everyone reporting this has only one thing in common — Tahoe — and that this is consistently being observed after a period of inactivity/sleep.

I don't have any Adobe apps installed.

Yes, individual app developers need to maintain compatibility, but the OS clearly needs to do a better job identifying when this issue is occurring, and take some proactive steps to avoid the whole system pausing.

That it's happening across a mix of 3rd-party apps, or a common Apple app, is where it gets hard to identify.

This has happened to me on both my MacBook Air and Mac Studio on four or five occasions now, usually when I wake up the device after it has been sleeping overnight. Only happened since Tahoe. I have different apps and extensions on each device, though with some overlap. Could indeed be a third-party extension, but maybe not due to a change with the extension but with some change to Tahoe or some new restriction. Whether it is the extension or Tahoe that needs fixing is another matter. Either way, it is a very inelegant crash! It is a shame that Tahoe doesn't do more to tell us what app or extension likely led to the crash. A lot of guesswork is involved.

The following does not solve the problem but may help elucidate some as to what is happening.

For this situation of”out of application memory”, it has relatively little relevance whether your system has 8GB or 48GB. Let me explain. A memory leak happens when some software error results in wn app, service, or other piece of software request a lot RAM and fails to properly release that RAM. When memory in use is more than the physical memory, the OS will use several things to cope - use virtual memory (space on your drive), and/or compress some of the contents that are not actively used.

Of course, the lesser memory installed, the sooner the OS needs to use these things. This is one reason why systems with more memory typically perform better under load.

But ULTIMATELY the error occurs not when physical memory is exhausted, but when VIRTUAL Memory is exhausted.

I have a Mac Studio M1 Max and I have similar issues. This morning all apps were showing non-responsive and the message advised low application memory. Had to do a hard reboot.

On top of that over 100GB of hard drive space disappeared. I have a 2TB hard drive and had 357GB free last night. This morning I had only 158GB free and that app memory message.

Looks like Tahoe has a memory leak problem!

Same issue today as well. Messages was eating up 200GB of memory and that exact system dialogue box was there waiting for me when I came out of sleep mode this morning.

Apple M4 Max, 36 GB, MacOS 26.0.1 (25A362)

Me too. MacBook Pro M1 Pro 2020, 16GB of RAM. I have colleagues with much newer macs and much more memory. Same thing. By the time that the apps get paused by the system -- it's impossible to start to force quit them because they quickly all start to get paused, and then the only option is to force power off the mac. Super annoying, especially during work zoom calls. Only started happening with 26.0.1 (25A362) The mac has been mostly flawless until now. This is critical to fix.