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

Dear community,


I recently bought myself a MacBook Pro with a M4 Pro chip, 48 GB of RAM and a 2 TB SSD hard drive.

It shipped with macOS 15.


After updating to macOS 26 I've experienced the following issues:


1) "Black screen of death" after system sleep

2) After wake up from sleep, I get the message "System has run out of application memory" and the system is completely unresponsive. (Can't check Activity Monitor for details because of that)


I have never experienced these issues with other Macs, and I am on my third Apple silicon machine now. I used the migration assistant to migrate the machine from my former M2 Pro machine.


Could this be a OS issue or is my new hardware faulty?


I attached a screenshot of the "application memory" message, but is in German.


Thank you, best regards


Michael





[Edited by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Sep 30, 2025 1:02 AM

Reply
137 replies

Dec 12, 2025 10:02 AM in response to guardamarco

guardamarco wrote:

When dozens of users report the same problem

As others have pointed out, "dozens of users" means, statistically speaking - 0 users. And I'm not even sure what "problem" you're talking about. This is an 8 page rant thread. There's no problem anymore, just shouting.


the only response is "Apple is great, Apple is fair," I see a lot of similarities with a religious sect...

This is a pet peeve of mine. This accusation is typical for the internet. People in this forum and elsewhere complain about real Apple problems all the time. But strangely, no one care. No, I mean it. Absolutely no one cares about real-world problems with Apple.


Those problems that "get traction", that get boosted by social media influencers, are often entirely invented. In some cases, they are real issues in general, but they're issues where Apple actually performs very well, either compared to its competitors or objectively.


As a developer myself, these are the things that annoy me. If you pay any attention to the Apple developer social media scene, you will come away almost completely misinformed about the state of the Apple developer world. These aren't merely academic issues or people shouting at each other on the internet. The most misinformed, malign, and powerful people in the world, the politicians, are working very hard to make everything worse.

I'm not saying "Apple is great, Apple is fair". That's not true at all. But what you hear on the internet regarding Apple is about 90% opposite from what it is in real life, at least for the issues that I'm most familiar with.


Third-party developers don't invent things, they follow the operating system manufacturer's guidelines; evidently in this case (as has already happened in the past with other Apple-related applications, by the way), the guidelines differ slightly from reality.

Third-party developers most definitely invent things. Sometimes they follow guidelines, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes that's a bad idea, and sometimes it's not. But generally speaking, conscientious 3rd party developers try hard to ensure that their users have a great experience, by any means necessary. If Apple's APIs and guidelines get in the way, as they often do, then they'll be ignored, if possible. Trust me, sometimes it's an awful lot of invention and work to get an app running on an Apple device. Software that exhibits bugs, crashes, or a poor experience can only be attributed to the developer of that software, not to any other developer. That's true for 3rd party developers and for Apple.

Dec 12, 2025 11:02 AM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:


IdrisSeabright wrote:

Apple is responsible for making sure thousands, tens of thousands of developers follow all of Apple's guidelines?
Actually over 51 million developers.

Thank you for the more accurate information. I admit I didn't bother to do any research and also wanted to avoid hyperbole.

Other interesting data - over 146 thousand developer accounts terminated. But over 128 million customer accounts terminated.

Interesting indeed.

Feb 5, 2026 5:39 AM in response to NoCreativeUserName

I have this issue too, they started popping up once I upgraded to Tahoe since yesterday, I didn't install any new software or third-parties, and my usage it ideally didn't change, I have Rancher Desktop, Slack and Chrome, they eat memory but they never caused OS freeze. I used to open tons of tabs without issues (80+ sometimes), but since yesterday night (less than 20 hours), I'm unable to open more than 15 tabs, and can't open Chrome+VSCode+Docker altogether


I have Apple M1 Pro 16GB RAM, Tahoe 26.2 (25C56)


Please, anyone has any quick fix or how to downgrade to the previous OS?

Apr 29, 2026 12:31 PM in response to etresoft

Well I simply think you are wrong. There is no way you are able to categorically and objectively prove that my suggestion is incorrect. I have simply reported what I have seen and my thoughts have come from using Macs and MacOS for over 40 years. I am no newbie to this scene.


Yes, People are always complaining, but that doesn't mean it's not true and in no way did I compose a rant against Apple.


As for suggesting that my mention of Tahoe using drive space is off topic, did you actually read what I wrote. I specifically linked the application memory problem to the loss of drive space, so no, you're wrong again. It is directly relevant.


My problem with Calendar was entirely due to corrupt cache files. I specifically stated I was not suggesting it is the sole cause of the application memory problem. Just that it provided a repeatable occurrence of the problem to study. I deleted the cache files and Calendar has been behaving itself ever since.


And no, it has nothing to do with gmail. I only use Apple's iCloud for all Mail and Calendar etc. Don't presume to know what you clearly do not. That's 3 times you've been wrong.


I ran df (drive space check) on this Mini (Tahoe) and also my previous MacPro (Monterey). Basically same stuff, same accounts etc, but the former is using 411Gi while the latter only 233Gi. So numeric confirmation that Tahoe eats drive space and IMO that is linked to the application memory issue that according to some "doesn't exist" even though it clearly does.


Makes no difference to me whether you agree with me or not. I offered a possible and plausible explanation of the problem that might throw some light on the issue. I am not here seeking help which is just as well.


I have little to do with this forum these days and this is all just a reminder why so I won't be back here.

Apr 30, 2026 4:54 AM in response to NotSoTechnical

NotSoTechnical wrote:

Disagree.

Your disagreement does not suffice to erase any of the many posts about this problem over the years.


Macs are UNIX-compliant machines, and someone back in the 1970's made a decision that UNIX machines would do self-maintenance at 3am in the morning. Macs adopted that strategy with the switch to OS X in 2001, so for the past 25 years it's been better to leave a Mac running 24-7 so that it can do its nightly maintenance tasks.

The UNIX specification covers more lower-level interfaces than that. Mac's haven't done any kind of specific "overnight" maintenance for decades.


You can keep it off, leave it on, it doesn't matter. The hardware is always powered as there isn't any physical switch anymore. If you stop using it, it will go to sleep, at least until it needs to do "dark wake" maintenance.


Apr 30, 2026 5:34 AM in response to NotSoTechnical

NotSoTechnical wrote:

Switching on the Power button sends a surge of energy through the system that can be traumatic for hardware, but that was more true back in the spinning hard drive days than it is today.

In other words, it doesn't really matter anymore.


Same logic applies to electric vehicles compared to gas-powered vehicles. Starting up a gas-powered vehicle is hard on the system, but starting an electric vehicle has very little impact. That's why they last longer and require no regular maintenance.

Again, you also seem to be saying it doesn't really matter.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

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

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