Guide: How to solve Yosemite memory leaks and CPU usage

There is no recognized memory leak problem with Yosemite. It is performing as designed. This was implemented in Mavericks and I'm convinced that Apple will never go back to the old memory management system.

There you go all. Apple has spoken. Then tell us why when user's that go back to 10.9 the problem goes away,if this was Implemented back then ?

I went back to 10.95 and the problem is not there.

Yuck9 wrote:

Then tell us why when user's that go back to 10.9 the problem goes away,if this was Implemented back then ?

IMHO, the problem is Apple Mail 8.x. I suppose you could argue that's part of Yosemite, but that still does not make it a Yosemite Memory Management issue.

Apple Mail problems started in Mavericks with some simple changes to accommodate Gmail. Not only are those fixes insufficient for Gmail users in Mavericks today, things got worse in Yosemite. I can't say for certain, but I think they may have really messed things up when adapting Mail to using iCloud sync. Almost all the handful of users I deal with who are still having even more serious issues with Mail than are even reflected here are using iCloud and seem to involve large attachments, but it's really too early to make any real conclusions about this. Be assured that all such issues are being documented in bug reports to Apple which will hopefully and finally point Engineering in the right direction.

Works as soon as you finish the process. Now my Mail app is working using just what is needed from the CPU. No more overheating.

Thanks!

Yuck9 wrote:

There you go all. Apple has spoken. Then tell us why when user's that go back to 10.9 the problem goes away,if this was Implemented back then ?

I went back to 10.95 and the problem is not there.

Then you have solved the problem that you perceived, all is well now.

No. He did not say that. The problem is still there in the one or other way and it is called Yosemite. Personally I don't have those bad issues (they are just minor) but still you see people walking in with "this solved my issue". And some "I still got issues". Counting this and a couple of (here) unrelated issues I have to concur with many here: Bad job, Apple! Very, very bad job. Steve is gone. He'll not come back :-(

Luis_Mercado's great suggestion bought me two days of peace on my mac mini, and MacBook Air, all 2012. Unfortunately, it didn't work with my wife's 2012 MacBook Pro at all, and my MacBook and Mini both went back to their old tricks. Update 10.10.2 solved my memory leak problems ultimately, but left all three machines somewhat sluggish. In addition, all machines stopped downloading mail from Godaddy servers.

The nuclear option worked well: I broke down, backed up all of my information on a mirrored drive, and reformatted my hard disk. Then I reinstalled OS X and manually brought back my apps and data. I wanted control of what data and apps came back, so I didn't use Time Machine.

It was a day of work, but it's like a new computer.

What do you mean by "Fix your disk permissions?" in "Second step: Shut down your machine and enter Safe Mode (press shift once you turn on your computer again, more info below). Once you're there, fix your disk permissions."

bobjava wrote:

What do you mean by "Fix your disk permissions?

Open Disk Utility (found in /Applications/Utilities/), highlight your boot volume in the left column and click the "Repair Permissions" button at the bottom of the window.

Gotcha MadMacs0. I had already done that a few days ago, but in reading the original post, it seemed like I need to specifically do in while in safe mode. Is it essential to do it while in safe mode?

I followed all the steps, (except for the fact that I did the repair permissions earlier), but my WindowServer is still using up 50%+ of the CPU power, and the machine is running sluggish. Before upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, this machine was like lightning. I used to have 16 spaces filled to the brim with 50+ windows open (Numbers, Keynote, skype, videos playing, two different browser [Chrome, Firefox] with multiple tabs open), and the machine NEVER skipped a beat.

Then I wanted to install ThinkorSwim (Stock trading platform by TD Ameritrade), but it would not work on 10.6, so I had to upgrade to Mavericks... It was slow, so the Apple support team told me to update the OS to Yosemite, so I did, and now I get the color pinwheel regularly, and the computer is almost unusable. I really don't want to part with it. Any suggestions?

bobjava wrote:

Is it essential to do it while in safe mode?

I honestly don't know what difference it might make.

Wrong disk permissions will not slow down your machine. It will either be a security hole our apps might not function due to lack of access. So you're doomed.

Today I discovered a new leak. The process /System/Library/Image Capture/Support/Image Capture Extension.app/Contents/MacOS/Image Capture Extension went up to 12GB and setting memory pressure to yellow.

ThomasKilian wrote:

Today I discovered a new leak.

Did you run "Instruments" to confirm it was a "leak"?

Gonna try this tomorrow, I hope that will help it looks promising 🙂