Hello,
It appears that the memory leak affecting the WindowServer is back in macOS Tahoe. Routinely, WindowServer uses around 2 Go of Ram. After closing all app and Windows, the memory consumption goes down to 900 Mo, which is still huge.
I am using macOS 26.1 on a MacMini M2 Pro connected to an Apple Studio Display.
Cheers.
[Edited by Moderator]
Mac mini, macOS 26.1
riadfromhabsheim wrote:
Indeed, I concur with all of that. However, my primary concern lies in the substantial memory consumption exhibited by WindowsServer. This aspect is particularly noteworthy to me.
Mine is using 2.4GB now - but the "Compressed" column shows 336,6 MB, and the "Real Mem" shows 267MB. This is not much at all!
As already noted by the other contributors, macOS is very apt at managing memory. It tries to keep as much as possible used, so as to minimize the need to load stuff from disk. So the "nominal" memory assigned to WindowServer may seem large, but most of it, comprising stuff that is not currently in use, is heavily compressed.
Turn on the "Real Memory" column, by control-clicking in the header area of Activity Monitor, and see how much memory WindowServer is actually using right now. This may dispel some of your fears.
riadfromhabsheim wrote:
Indeed, I concur with all of that. However, my primary concern lies in the substantial memory consumption exhibited by WindowsServer. This aspect is particularly noteworthy to me.
Mine is using 2.4GB now - but the "Compressed" column shows 336,6 MB, and the "Real Mem" shows 267MB. This is not much at all!
As already noted by the other contributors, macOS is very apt at managing memory. It tries to keep as much as possible used, so as to minimize the need to load stuff from disk. So the "nominal" memory assigned to WindowServer may seem large, but most of it, comprising stuff that is not currently in use, is heavily compressed.
Turn on the "Real Memory" column, by control-clicking in the header area of Activity Monitor, and see how much memory WindowServer is actually using right now. This may dispel some of your fears.
As already noted, there is nothing wrong with what you are showing.
WindowServer showing 2GB of memory is pretty normal.
Memory pressure is a better indication of how things are going than any particular app memory count.
FWIW, I am seeing WindowServer at some 2GB right now, with dozens of browser tabs open in two different browsers (including about a dozen youtube videos), and about 13 applications running, including Final Cut Pro.
My memory pressure graph is brownish, even though my mac has 24GB of RAM. Also, note that there is a little bit of Swap used.
But if I close some of the useless tabs, look: my memory pressure is back on green almost immediately:
Notice how most of it was from the "Compressed" section, meaning stuff that was not actively being used and that the OS automatically compresses behind the scenes, to avoid more swapping, since it is faster to compress and decompress than to transfer to/from swap on disk.
Your Memory Pressure is green, you have no swaps, and your system is showing some free memory. There is no problem with your system.
Back in the dark ages (>8-10 years ago), you wanted to have lots of free RAM. Today, macOS manages your system memory very actively, and will use most if it even under a light load. Expect only 20-30% memory to be 'free' at most.
Post back if you have an actual problem, meaning the memory pressure is high (yellow), the swap count is large, and your system is running slow.
If you want to see what a memory leak and the resulting problems look like, if that is the situation you're in then macOS will show you an error dialog like this one:
Expressing your concern here doesn't do much, "we" are users like you. To have Apple consider your feedback, submit it here:
Having said that, why are you concerned? WindowServer is using 2.4 GB on my M4 MBP running Tahoe (48 GB memory), it's using 600 MB on my M1 MBP running Sequoia (16 GB memory). Neither machine has any memory issues, and until they do (which I honestly don't expect to see happen, as it hasn't ever happened on either machine and I work with some pretty large images in Photoshop), I see no reason for any concern at all.
Thank you for your response.
At this juncture, the memory pressure is acceptable. However, I must express my concern that the WindowServer is utilizing an excessive amount of RAM. Currently, the consumption reaches a peak of 3 GB.
On a Mac Mini equipped with an Intel processor and connected to a 27-inch 4K Intel Display running Sonoma, the WindowServer consumes approximately 200 MB of RAM.
riadfromhabsheim wrote:
Do you guys have the same issue?
Cheers.
Nope , no issue at all. Over the decades some users have claimed memory leaks without fully understanding the processes involved.
Indeed, I concur with all of that. However, my primary concern lies in the substantial memory consumption exhibited by WindowsServer. This aspect is particularly noteworthy to me.
Yep, thanks a lot for your reply.
You are right, the most important number is the real memory and the number is fine 😀.
WindowServer has a memory leak in macOS Tahoe
