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Is 24GB RAM overkill for MBA?
- Thread starter bchreng
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.... and 4GB Ram/256SSD i5 is enough for me with my old MBA! Is all what you do with it! I doubt that a “professional “ who has to work with his MacBook Air (already that is something different, because this Airs are usually ideal for everyone who has to write when not at home and not for serious work on Photoshop or CAD Programms... - sitting in Starbucks with the logo glowing (at least the old ones) and surfing any Ram is enough....
Occasionally touching up pics which need removing “red eyes” etc from the wife or mother in law (Adobe Lt or others).... so discussing about 24GB is very nice, but only to spend a bit time about the subject...
Learning touch typing with 10fingers instead with two is the best way to speed things up, not Ram...
Occasionally touching up pics which need removing “red eyes” etc from the wife or mother in law (Adobe Lt or others).... so discussing about 24GB is very nice, but only to spend a bit time about the subject...
Learning touch typing with 10fingers instead with two is the best way to speed things up, not Ram...
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24 or 32 GB RAM in a new Mac MBA 2025+ is not overkill unless a very short life cycle is planned.
RAM demands by OS/apps always increase every year. So what one would ideally put in any new Mac today will depend on how long one intends the new Mac's life cycle to be. If you intend to trade it in next year, 2026, then listen to all the folks talking here about what they do now with their Macs and buy what works now.
OTOH i you intend to keep the new Mac for multiple years, then ignore all the folks talking here about what they do now with their Macs and instead try to forecast what RAM demands will be toward the end of your intended life cycle. 16 GB RAM will not be ideal toward the end of the intended life cycle for most buyers reading here IMO.
I got 24GB on my M4 iMac, and I really enjoy having some extra memory when having tons of tabs and apps open. I dont do any heavy app or workflow, but I just enjoy having tons of stuff open.
I have an M3 MBA, with 24GB and a 1TB SSD, and like others have mentioned I very much appreciate having the "extra" memory and don't consider it "overkill." My use is MS Word, Google Docs, Sheets, and the usual email and web browsing. I do photo editing on LunaPic (free online photo editor; works great) occasionally, to prepare items for articles I submit to journals. Interestingly, the only time I've experienced the rotating beachball (and then for less that a second at a time) is when I scan a document to my MBA from my printer, using Epson Scanner software; haven't figured out the cause for that yet. Anyway, my 2¢.
I have the 32 GB model and with Safari (5-10 tabs), Apple Mail, WhatsApp, Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Remote Desktop opened all at once, the RAM usage is just below 24 GB according to Activity Monitor. I'm glad I went with the 32 GB config, although even 24 GB is enough (at least for now and given my use case).
The whole "Professional" thing is so over-done. A "professional" author would likely do fine with 4GB/8GB/16GB whatever base is available, assuming they're not running a local LLM for content grooming. And they would particularly benefit from proper typing technique, as you mention.
But some people need to feel special
"Pro level machines must have 64GB RAM minimum!!"Sure, in some cases, I agree, but they're not "Pro" level, people just need to properly determine their requirements and buy accordingly.
Current uptime 12 days; 24GB of RAM and using 10GB of swap. Probably 45 Safari tabs open and 30 Chrome tabs. WhatsApp, occasional Lightroom use, occasional VLC, AppleTV etc. But the overwhelming majority of that memory is just Safari/Chrome tabs. The machine is just swapping out idle tabs and once I reboot it will go back to 0GB swap for a while. And then slowly creep up.
It’s all depend what you use your MacBook for... or what your work is.... Journalist, (a Toughbook would/could be there be more suitable) - Student, “Starbucks surfer”, “Poser” - generally the RAM utilisation is about for Word Processing (e.g., Microsoft Word, Pages) from 200 MB to 500 MB - More complex documents with many images or extensive formatting may increase usage up to 1 GB.
Safari web surfing can range from 400 MB to several GBs depending on the number of tabs open and the content of those tabs. For example, 5-10 tabs might use around 500 MB to 1.5 GB, while more intensive sites (like those with heavy media) will require more. Depend of settings, refresh etc etc...
Most RAM is used for Video or Photo Editing (e.g., Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop) Basic edits on smaller files may require closer to 4 GB, but working with high-resolution images or videos can push RAM usage to 16 GB or more... but than again, really heavy editing work or “professional “ use, you wouldn’t do on a MacBook? You could, but only in emergencies when a Desktop is not available... Or?
Safari web surfing can range from 400 MB to several GBs depending on the number of tabs open and the content of those tabs. For example, 5-10 tabs might use around 500 MB to 1.5 GB, while more intensive sites (like those with heavy media) will require more. Depend of settings, refresh etc etc...
Most RAM is used for Video or Photo Editing (e.g., Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop) Basic edits on smaller files may require closer to 4 GB, but working with high-resolution images or videos can push RAM usage to 16 GB or more... but than again, really heavy editing work or “professional “ use, you wouldn’t do on a MacBook? You could, but only in emergencies when a Desktop is not available... Or?
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I usually run docker but try to just run one or two at a time at most, clion / pycharm, chrome 5-10 tabs, halloy, ghostty, spotify, preview, teams, 3-4 desktops, fits 32gb nicely.
By now, I think Pro just means “appealing to people who can expense this.”
The Pro designation has always (obviously) been a flawed marketing term, but today more than ever, a developer rockin a MBA is equally likely to be a rookie on entry level gear or someone elite who can outcompete almost anyone with half the resources.
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Blame marketing practical realities. Apple could borrow the classification system common in the tool industry, whether for scissors or drills, where a product is labeled light, medium or heavy duty.
But calling a computer 'light duty' could be off-putting, especially if your competitor doesn't.
Also, some 'light duty' Macs are pretty powerful (e.g.: M4 MacMini).
And people paying Apple's expensive RAM and/or SSD upgrade costs don't want to hear 'medium duty' on their purchase north of 2 grand.
We're gonna keep seeing 'Pro' in names.
But calling a computer 'light duty' could be off-putting, especially if your competitor doesn't.
Also, some 'light duty' Macs are pretty powerful (e.g.: M4 MacMini).
And people paying Apple's expensive RAM and/or SSD upgrade costs don't want to hear 'medium duty' on their purchase north of 2 grand.
We're gonna keep seeing 'Pro' in names.
i have a 16GB MBA M1 - when I'm using multiple programs, web pages files etc it goes to swap for about 4GB.
My next one (M5) is going to be 24 or 32GB
My next one (M5) is going to be 24 or 32GB
24GB of RAM on a computer where upgrading the RAM after the fact is practically impossible is not overkill at all. If e-mail, web browsing, streaming video services/apps, and Microsoft Office are all that you'll ever do on your Mac and you're buying a Mac with an M4 Pro or M4 Max and getting 48GB of RAM, THAT'S overkill.
When I switched last year from MBP 2012 Mojave 8GB to M3 MBA 16GB Sonoma I thought 16GB would be plenty. No it isn't. The new Apple silicon OS takes a lot more RAM than the old OS did. I now understand the complaints from users with 8GB back than. Should have gotten 24GB back than (for very light usage) but I did not want to pay 3000 Euros for an MBA. Next will be at least 32GB (only to be able to listen to amazon music without stuttering lol).
If that’s your experience, you’ve got something else going on. Apple Silicon’s memory management is incredible and the speed of the RAM and the bus in your M3 easily outclasses a 2012 MBP.
If your 16GB M3 can’t handle stuff your 2012 could, that not a RAM issue. That’s a software issue.
SW and RAM usage is highly connected. I can only tell that my usage did not change I never had RAM problems before but now I experience those. (Stuttering music and yellow RAM pressure level)
Well, yeah, the "software issue" is that 2025 software is written for computers that are several times faster than they were in 2012, everything is using higher-res graphics, higher quality video/animations and making more use of muti-threading (now that the base processor has 10 cores rather than 2-4 cores in 2012). Even a retina/4k class image or offscreen buffer takes up 4x the RAM of a pre-2012 standard def one. Your phone is taking higher-res photos and movies. Every web page now has half a dozen high-res video ads. Then there's a bunch of apps that have transitioned from Mac-specific versions to universal Electron apps (each running in its own sandboxed copy of Chromium)...
So unless you're using your 2012 machine exclusively to run 2012 software, work on 2012 documents and only browse 2012 websites via the Wayback Machine you are going to need more RAM in 2025.
In the last decade or so we've seen processors go from 2-4 core @ 2.5Ghz to 10+ core @ 4.4 GHz processors, transition to Retina/4k graphics as default (not to mention higher frame rates/HDR) and introduce new concepts like neural engines... all of that means that the processor can churn through more data per second. Yet, somehow, despite every other spec of a basic Mac having increased exponentially, RAM and disc storage requirements have magically stayed much the same...? No, I don't think so.
Ok, Apple have just doubled base RAM - from a starting point of an already not-over-generous 8GB that had stayed the same since late 2012 - but that was barely playing catch-up with the other specs - and some people on this forum were still defending 8GB before the M4 Macs were released.
I kept my last Mac 9 years and it still runs fine now except it can’t handle 4k video..
So based on that 9 year plan I’ve gone for 32 gig ram and 2TB ssd.
Ram is overkill but I’m happy to keep it based on it lasting 7 years plus
So based on that 9 year plan I’ve gone for 32 gig ram and 2TB ssd.
Ram is overkill but I’m happy to keep it based on it lasting 7 years plus
Maybe I treat my computers with too little respect, but my MacBook Air M1 is starting to show its age and it is not related to the 8GB RAM. The battery has decayed somewhat, sometimes the U and I-keys are not responsive and one USB-port only works for charging. Although I like the idea of future-proofing, I'm not sure it would have worked out for me.
That served you 4+ years, which is a lot of time if you use your computer daily. I'm very sure handed and rarely drop or bump things, but just about any computer I've used everyday for that long has some issues. If your daily driver turns on and runs after almost 5 years, I'd say you got your money's worth.
I do have laptops that have lasted longer than that, but I don't have any laptop older than 5 years that haven't been repaired in one way or another. Tools break down.
I got 128GB RAM on my Mac Studio. Just turning it on, loading Outlook and Word and firing up a few windows in Brave somehow gets 61GB used (I kid you not), but memory pressure is at 4%. (And zero swap file used.)
This is why I always spring for the AppleCare+. There are other insurance schemes — maybe purchase protection with an American Express, for example — but the laptop inevitably is going to need service.
I never buy extended warranties, but made an exception during the touchbar MBP era because they were so power hungry, batteries didn’t stand a chance.
Since Apple Silicon, I've reverted to not buying AppleCare because it's no longer worth it.
Total replacement scenarios are the only failures I care about. If I lose a port, I'll survive. If the screen is glitchy, I've got an Apple Studio Display. If the keyboard breaks, I'll just use an external (which I do most of the time anyway).
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