How to quit Dashboard without Restarting

[GimmeSlack12]

Dashboard is controlled by the Dock (which it fairly common knowledge), but I have noticed that Dashboard takes up a good portion of memory and once it is initialized you can't get that memory back without restarting. That's what I used to think.
It's not ground breaking but it is good info to know.

Open Activity Monitor, and select the Dock from the processes and hit Quit Process in the top left. The Dock will go away and come right back, the widgets go away but they don't come back until you initialize Dashboard again.
Anyone notice that Dashboard becomes a memory hog over time?

 

[mkrishnan]

Open Activity Monitor, and select the Dock from the processes and hit Quit Process in the top left. The Dock will go away and come right back, the widgets go away but they don't come back until you initialize Dashboard again.
Anyone notice that Dashboard becomes a memory hog over time?

Hmmmm, interesting....so, are you saying that if you do this, or execute killall Dock from the terminal, to reset the Dock and Dashboard, that you free up memory associated with running widgets until the widgets get activated (by activating DB) again? Or are you saying that you free up even more memory that was never properly released by the widgets or DB, so that even if you do start the widgets up again, you end up ahead?

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Well I was anticipating to get more memory back than what I have. Quitting Dashboard gave back about 50 megs, but I thought it took up more space than that.
This will require a little more testing to see if it is helpful or not. I had had NeoOffice open earlier as well, and that is a memory hog too, so perhaps a restart and then try this again and I'll let you know.

 

[mbopy22]

Sorry but could you explain this step by step....

I'm just new to Macs and I need examples on how to do things... I'm not asking for pictures, just how to do it... THANKS!!!!

 

[ITASOR]

Pretty sure the RAM just becomes "inactive" and doesn't show as free. If OS X or another app needs that inactive RAM, it takes it. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[mkrishnan]

Sorry but could you explain this step by step....

I'm just new to Macs and I need examples on how to do things... I'm not asking for pictures, just how to do it... THANKS!!!!

Well, you don't really *need* to do this, but if you *want* to do it, then open Activity Monitor, which is in your Applications / Utilities folder, and type "dock" in the search bar at the top. You will see an entry for the Dock process. To stop it, and stop Dashboard and Exposé as well, you click on this entry and click the Quit Process button (looks like a stop sign). After quitting, the Dock will immediately restart automatically, and bring back Exposé and Dashboard with it.

 

[VanNess]

Anyone notice that Dashboard becomes a memory hog over time?

What I've noticed is that any time you update software (i.e., 10.4.3. update or security updates, etc.) and the updater "optimizes" the system (pre-binds it), widgets real memory bloats to about almost triple of what they should be after restarting. Widgets that would normally take around 8k of memory take 21k or so of memory, such as Apple's regular stock widgets, like calculator, address book, and so on. Quitting the dock or restarting the computer again brings the widget's memory back down to where it should be and stays there until the next update rolls along that optimizes and restarts the system.

The same effect can be reproduced by manually (via the terminal) pre-binding the system or using any of the maintenance utilities (such as Onyx) that offer pre-binding via it's GUI. Always bloats widget memory.