Clear Application Memory on Mac — Fix “Your system has run out of application memory”
If macOS shows “Your system has run out of application memory” or “Your Mac does not have enough RAM”, it’s not a mystical hardware failure — it’s a resource-management problem that you can diagnose and fix. Below are clear, prioritized steps (quick fixes first, then advanced checks) to free memory, stop memory leaks, and prevent repeat warnings.
What is “application memory” on Mac?
Application memory on macOS primarily means the physical RAM allocated to processes, but macOS also uses virtual memory: compressed memory in RAM and swap space on disk. The system moves inactive or oversized memory pages to swap when RAM is low so apps keep running. Apple calls much of this virtual memory behavior “application memory” in alerts because it directly affects applications.
macOS tracks usage with the Activity Monitor’s Memory tab and reports a Memory Pressure graph. Low free RAM is normal on macOS (the OS caches aggressively), but sustained high memory pressure or large swap usage indicates real shortages or misbehaving software. In other words: free RAM alone isn’t the whole story — memory pressure and swap are.
For a quick look, open Activity Monitor > Memory and check “Memory Pressure”, “Physical Memory”, and “Swap Used”. If Memory Pressure is in the green, macOS is handling load; when it turns yellow/red, performance will degrade and apps may crash or trigger the “your system has run out of application memory” message.
Why macOS shows “Your system has run out of application memory”
The alert appears when macOS can’t satisfy allocation requests using RAM and available swap. Common causes are: many memory-intensive apps (video editing, VMs, Chrome with many tabs), apps with memory leaks that steadily consume RAM, or simply insufficient RAM for your workload. Another root cause is very low free disk space — macOS needs disk space to create swap files, so a full disk can prevent swap and trigger the alert.
Background or rogue processes can silently consume memory. Browser extensions, helper processes from creative apps, or cloud sync clients may spawn multiple processes that accumulate memory. Third-party kernel extensions or drivers can also destabilize memory handling, but these are less common on modern macOS versions.
Finally, hardware limitations matter: older Intel Macs with 8GB or less are more likely to hit this limit under multitasking. Apple silicon Macs handle memory differently (shared memory architecture), but they can still exhaust available addressable memory for apps and trigger warnings if workloads are heavy or malformed.
Quick fixes — Clear application memory now
If you need an immediate resolution (so you can keep working), do these things in order. They are low‑risk and usually clear memory pressure quickly.
- Quit or force‑quit the top memory consumers using Activity Monitor.
- Close unused browser tabs and heavy apps (Photos, Chrome, VM guests, Docker).
- Free disk space (delete large files, empty Trash) to ensure swap can grow.
- Restart the Mac if memory pressure remains high after closing apps.
Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) and sort by “Memory” to see which apps are using the most RAM. Select a process and click the stop button (⌧ with octagon icon) to quit or force quit it. This releases its memory immediately and is the fastest way to reduce memory pressure.
If free disk space is below ~10% of your drive, clean up large files (Downloads, old disk images, caches). macOS needs free disk space to create swap files; without it, the OS cannot page memory to disk and will warn or terminate apps. After freeing space, macOS can recover and relieve the “out of application memory” state.
When quick closes fail, restart the Mac. A reboot clears RAM, terminates leaks, and resets many system caches. If the problem recurs immediately after login, check Login Items in System Settings and temporarily disable nonessential startup apps.
Advanced troubleshooting and prevention
If quick fixes only provide temporary relief, use these diagnostic and longer‑term solutions. They help find memory leaks, stop runaway processes, and prevent future alerts.
Use Activity Monitor’s Inspect > Sample Process to capture what a suspect process is doing. On the Terminal side, these commands help identify memory usage and swap: top -o mem (live view), vm_stat (virtual memory stats), and sysctl vm.swapusage (swap usage). To kill a problematic process you can use kill PID or kill -9 PID when necessary — but prefer graceful quits first.
Advanced command list (use with caution):
top -o mem— live sorted by memory usage.vm_stat— pages in/out, free/active/inactive pages.sysctl vm.swapusage— current swap stats.ps aux | sort -nrk 4 | head -n 10— top memory processes.
Note: some commands (like purge) require developer tools and are not recommended for routine use — they forcibly clear disk caches and can degrade performance. If you suspect a memory leak in a specific app, update the app, check vendor support, or reinstall it. For developers, Instruments (part of Xcode) can profile memory allocation to find leaks.
Hardware and system remedies: upgrade RAM on upgradeable Intel Macs, or move to a Mac with more memory if your workload requires it. For persistent, unexplained memory errors, reset the SMC (Intel Macs) or NVRAM/PRAM if advised by Apple support; on Apple Silicon, a simple shutdown and restart is equivalent to many firmware reset steps. Keep macOS and apps updated — many memory bugs are fixed in updates.
For more technical notes and community-driven scripts related to application memory on Mac, see this repository: application memory on mac. It contains community findings and additional diagnostic tips.
When to contact Apple or IT support
Contact support if memory alerts persist after closing apps, freeing disk space, and rebooting — especially if the same process reappears as the top memory consumer, or if the Mac stalls/crashes. Persistent faults can indicate a memory leak that only the app developer can patch, failing hardware, or deeper macOS corruption.
Provide these details to support: a screenshot of Activity Monitor’s Memory tab, output from sysctl vm.swapusage, and whether the issue happens in Safe Mode or with a different user account. Those data points accelerate diagnosis and reveal whether it’s system-wide or account-specific.
For managed Macs (corporate or school), check with IT before removing software or altering system settings. They may have deployed monitoring agents that behave unusually under heavy loads or require specific updates to mitigate leaks.
FAQ
How do I clear application memory on my Mac?
Quit or force‑quit heavy apps in Activity Monitor, close browser tabs, free disk space so swap can grow, and restart the Mac. If necessary, identify and kill specific runaway processes with Terminal commands like top and kill PID.
What is application memory on Mac?
It’s the RAM used by apps plus macOS-managed virtual memory (compressed memory and swap). macOS uses both to run applications; low available memory or heavy swap can trigger alerts and slow performance.
Why does my Mac say ‘Your system has run out of application memory’?
Because macOS can’t allocate more memory for apps using available RAM and swap. Typical causes: too many memory-heavy apps, memory leaks, or insufficient free disk space for swap files.