Low RAM on a 2014 MacBook Air

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Level 1

59 points

Low RAM on a 2014 MacBook Air

Hello.

I'm on a MacBook Air - 2014 model with OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 installed.

Since upgrading to OS X 10.10.3 I noticed to things: battery seems to drain quickly and the 4 GBs of RAM I have, hardly work well. Most time I find my Mac having less than 1 Gb free!!! I use a lot of ADOBE's Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign... but even when I use Apple Apps... like iTunes or QuickTime or iLife/iWork, it always has a low level of RAM!! Hardly 1Gb...

What could be happening that makes so much use of RAM?! Any suggestions?!

Thanks for any information you may provide me with.

All the best!

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 23, 2015 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

May 23, 2015 10:24 AM in response to JMPC

A

It's normal for almost all memory to be in use, either by applications or by the file cache. That's what you should want, since unused memory is going to waste. The relevant measure of whether memory is in short supply is what Apple calls "memory pressure."

Apple's explanation of memory pressure is here. If you want a more detailed, technical description, see here, and for some source code, see here.

B

Apps can affect Mac performance, battery runtime, temperature, and fan activity - Apple Support

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