I was wondering if apps in the dock use up any ram. With windows if you have apps in your taskbar there using ram. There are not using the normal amount of ram only enough to make them launch a lot faster. And i know i shouldn't really compare windows to mac os x, but since thats all i have to go on i had no choice. I do a lot of stuff out of my dock, I only have apps that i use very often because i didn't want to take a hit in the ram department. I understand that the little black arrow shows that the apps is running and using ram. I was just wondering that without that apps is it using any system resources at all?
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Does apps in the dock use ram just by sitting there?
- Thread starter thugpoet22
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The greater the number of application aliases the larger amount dock.app uses. The dock is an appications and take about 5 Mb of ram by itself. Each application alias in the dock uses about 0.1 Mb of ram. This is very little amount of ram so you won't notice the difference between 5 application alias compared to 50.
I think you might be confused between which apps are running and which are not running.
If there's a black triangle below the app icon in the dock, then that app is running, and using background RAM. Lots of apps with black triangles under them means your computer will be slowing down a little.
If there is no black triangle under the icon, then the icon is just a link, which has not been activated, and takes almost no RAM.
An easy way to both see which apps you have running and to quickly switch between them is to press apple-tab. (Apple-q closes the current app, and can be done at the same time as apple-tab)
I often notice ex-windows users don't know or realise how many apps they have active, and only notice their apple mac slowing down cos there's about 10-15 apps active and running in the background.
If there's a black triangle below the app icon in the dock, then that app is running, and using background RAM. Lots of apps with black triangles under them means your computer will be slowing down a little.
If there is no black triangle under the icon, then the icon is just a link, which has not been activated, and takes almost no RAM.
An easy way to both see which apps you have running and to quickly switch between them is to press apple-tab. (Apple-q closes the current app, and can be done at the same time as apple-tab)
I often notice ex-windows users don't know or realise how many apps they have active, and only notice their apple mac slowing down cos there's about 10-15 apps active and running in the background.
RedTomato said:
Yes. Switchers... make sure you quit your apps not just close the window as the app will still be running if you close the window.
stuartluff said:Yes. Switchers... make sure you quit your apps not just close the window as the app will still be running if you close the window.
The #1 cause of slow Macs at CompUSA and Fry's Electronics - people closing windows, and dumb salesmen not catching it.
thugpoet22 said:
No they are not. Because they are not running.
The Dock is simply a method to quickly access your oft-used apps/files/folders/etc.