Boot drive full - for 50% filled with swap-files

[Yeroon]

I'm using a 128 GB SSD (Macbook Air 2012 ML) of which about 55 GB was free. Suddenly I get messages that my boot drive is full and I should erase files...

This is very weird, as I didn't do anything. Disk Inventory X shows that apart from a 4 GB sleep file, my system is full of SWAP files! As you can see in the image, it's really messed up. Every swap file is 1 GB in size (the large blue area).

Is this a bug or something? I know those swap-files are probably gone when I reboot, but this is very annoying. I want to keep my SSD with lots of free space and now OS X is filling it up.

I don't know if it's of any importance, but my home folder in on an external Thunderbolt drive. OS X and all programs are the internal SSD.

Any suggestions?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

sleepimage – the Mac OS X sleepimage file explained

 

[Yeroon]

Hmmm... looks extremely oversized:
Page-ins: 97 GB(!)
Page-outs: 86 GB
SWAP: 44 GB

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Hmmm... looks extremely oversized:
Page-ins: 97 GB(!)
Page-outs: 86 GB
SWAP: 44 GB

When did you last restart? Page-Outs and swap files are accumulative, thus if you would page out 1 GB per day per your usage, in a month you would have 30 GB of page outs.

 

[Yeroon]

Hmmmm... I try not to reboot when it's not necessary. But I did it now, to get rid of this problem. But the last time was only a couple of days ago.

I've also read about certain programs 'leaking' memory. But which?

Isn't there a way to limit the size of the swap files?

 

[justperry]

Hmmmm... I try not to reboot when it's not necessary. But I did it now, to get rid of this problem. But the last time was only a couple of days ago.

I've also read about certain programs 'leaking' memory. But which?

Isn't there a way to limit the size of the swap files?

You should also think about upgrading to 8 GB RAM, just looked in Mactracker and it says it's possible, just check yourself to be sure. Edit: As maflynn says below you can't, should have known, it's an Air
I thought you could see pageouts on a per app bases in Activity Monitor but could not find them, otherwise you could find the offending Application.

You could for instance install an App like Menumeter and keep an eye on your pageouts.
I am on an old Powerbook and I never had my pagefiles grow this big, mostly 2-3 GB max. and that means a restart for my system, gets too slow.
I do know for instance flash is a problem and eats your physical RAM.

 

[maflynn]

You should also think about upgrading to 8 GB RAM,.

He can't its a MacBook Air and like the rMBP the ram is soldered onto to the logic board.

OP, I recommend rebooting a little more often to clear out the ram and swap files

 

[justperry]

He can't its a MacBook Air and like the rMBP the ram is soldered onto to the logic board.

OP, I recommend rebooting a little more often to clear out the ram and swap files

Should have known, it's an Air, we can order 4 GB or 8 GB but not upgrade ourselves.

 

[maflynn]

Should have known, it's an Air, we can order 4 GB or 8 GB but not upgrade ourselves.

NP, I was looking at them before I bought my rMBP

 

[Yeroon]

Thanks for your replies!

I'll upgrade to an iMac in the near future with at least 16 GB, so maybe that will solve this problem. But for now I still wonder if there's no option to limit the cache size (or to simple delete the files).

Haven't found the program that's leaking memory yet...

 

[justperry]

Thanks for your replies!

I'll upgrade to an iMac in the near future with at least 16 GB, so maybe that will solve this problem. But for now I still wonder if there's no option to limit the cache size (or to simple delete the files).

Haven't found the program that's leaking memory yet...

And by limiting the cache size we go back in time, I remember the days before OS X, when you were about to run out of memory you had to close Applications.

And deleting can not be done without a restart, OS X will take care of this, lets say you opened Photoshop last and you open huge files, if you close Photoshop that space will be recovered.

You might have a memory leak as you say, I never went above 2-3 GB.