A few days ago, my Mac did a download for Tahoe and then an update for Sequoia (or maybe it said Safari). I didn’t know why I got both notifications, so I did both (I’m obviously not tech savvy). Now I keep getting the error message that ‘my system has run out of application memory’. How do I fix this? Thank you.
iMac 24″
There are 2 reasons for the “Your system has run out of application memory” dialog box.
A. Your boot disk has very low free storage, and macOS cannot create page/swap files to offload virtual memory contents to disk. Depending on how much virtual memory is being called for, anything under 50-100GB of free storage may trigger the message.
Apple menu (upper left corner) -> About This Mac -> More Info... -> Storage (scroll down a bit) -> Storage Settings...
B. A process (or set of processes) has asked macOS for excessive amounts of virtual memory address space. In order to keep track of the virtual memory address space, the kernel creates virtual memory page tables. If there is a memory leak (process asks for a virtual address range, forgets to give it back, asks for another range, forgets again, wash, rinse, repeat), eventually there are so many page tables created there is no memory left for applications, and you get the “Your system has run out of applications memory”.
Look at
Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor -> View (menu) -> All Processes -> Memory (tab)
you can see what processes are using lots of memory. Many of these processes will be background agents and daemons used to provide many of the macOS services, as well as your applications.
Also keep in mind that each web browser tab will be a separate process running its own Javascript. If you have lots of browser tabs open, or if one of the browser tabs running Javascript with a bug in it, it is possible these browser tabs will add up to a lot of virtual memory demands, but no individual tab will look all that big.
There are 2 reasons for the “Your system has run out of application memory” dialog box.
A. Your boot disk has very low free storage, and macOS cannot create page/swap files to offload virtual memory contents to disk. Depending on how much virtual memory is being called for, anything under 50-100GB of free storage may trigger the message.
Apple menu (upper left corner) -> About This Mac -> More Info... -> Storage (scroll down a bit) -> Storage Settings...
B. A process (or set of processes) has asked macOS for excessive amounts of virtual memory address space. In order to keep track of the virtual memory address space, the kernel creates virtual memory page tables. If there is a memory leak (process asks for a virtual address range, forgets to give it back, asks for another range, forgets again, wash, rinse, repeat), eventually there are so many page tables created there is no memory left for applications, and you get the “Your system has run out of applications memory”.
Look at
Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor -> View (menu) -> All Processes -> Memory (tab)
you can see what processes are using lots of memory. Many of these processes will be background agents and daemons used to provide many of the macOS services, as well as your applications.
Also keep in mind that each web browser tab will be a separate process running its own Javascript. If you have lots of browser tabs open, or if one of the browser tabs running Javascript with a bug in it, it is possible these browser tabs will add up to a lot of virtual memory demands, but no individual tab will look all that big.
jingle_jangle wrote:
Got it. It says Physical Memory is 16.00 GB. Memory Used is 14.23 GB. Cached Files is 1.74 GB. Swap Used is 32.55 GB. User Bluetooth driver is 864 KB. Apple driver kit is 800 KB. Window Server is 300 MB. I’m in Activity Monitor right now and I just got another message that I’m out of Application Memory.
And the amount of free storage? If there is no storage to create page/swap files, then the operating system cannot give out any new virtual memory.
The fact that you have 32.55GB Swap Used, means you have apps that are consuming virtual memory that exceeds physical memory. THIS IS OK. This is normal, but it does mean you have to have physical storage available to grow the swap file(s).
So how much free storage does your system have.
Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility -> "Data" in left column, can tell you how much free space your system has.
Rebooting your Mac clears out the memory (often called RAM).
It is possible there are processes running in the background that are using significant resources. Check Activity Monitor, Memory tab (View menu > App Processes, then sort by Memory) to see what's running hard.
Please download and run Etrecheck. The free version is sufficient.
Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
Copy the report
and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.
jingle_jangle wrote:
425.76 GB Free
More than enough for swap files.
Just checking, but when you look at Activity Monitor, is the "Memory" column sorted so the processes using the most memory are at the top of the list?
FYI: I have 32GB of RAM, and I am NOT running any memory intensive processes (at the moment), which is why I have 0 swap used.
I’m sorry, neuroanatomist, I don’t know what your reply means. I did what you said, but I don’t know how much % is too much for it to work. Can I do a hard reboot to fix it? Is that safe to do, and how do I do it? How can I delete Tahoe because that download is what caused this. Thank you.
Got it. It says Physical Memory is 16.00 GB. Memory Used is 14.23 GB. Cached Files is 1.74 GB. Swap Used is 32.55 GB. User Bluetooth driver is 864 KB. Apple driver kit is 800 KB. Window Server is 300 MB. I’m in Activity Monitor right now and I just got another message that I’m out of Application Memory.
425.76 GB Free
Thank you everyone for your kind advice. With your help, I have fixed this problem! I am so very grateful to everyone.
Mac getting 'out of application memory' error after update
