Losing Memory rapidly while doing nothing

[megarockman24]

Hello,

Yosemite 10.10.5
21.5" MID 2010 imac
12GB RAM

I noticed my imac is rapidly losing system memory at a rapid pace. I'm seeing my available memory in the finder menu drop in increments of 500 MB while doing nothing. I don't have time machine on, not connected to the internet, and I have no apps running. I opened Activity Monitor and the only app that was writing the most was systemstatsd which wrote 700MB but when the memory starts dropping, there is no new processes displayed in Activity Monitor to explain why my memory is rapidly declining. In 3 minutes I lose 3GB. I ran disk utility and no errors were found. I disabled "Show preview icon" in finder because another thread suggested that's the culprit but it didn't help.

This is relatively new and I don't know what's causing it. The last thing I did was create a 1 minute video using Imovie. I was browsing events and saw old photos but thought nothing of it. Ever since then it's been at a steady decline. I deleted my iMovie library to gain more memory and I never use iPhoto. Could my imac be trying to rebuild something I accidentally deleted? Any advice would be super helpful! Thank you!

 

[maflynn]

Are you looking at all processes in activity monitor? I believe it defaults to only yours

Is your swap space increasing?

Personally I prescribe to the free ram is wasted ram line of thinking and as long as my memory pressure is green and/or swap space is low. I don't worry about it

 

[h9826790]

Are you looking at all processes in activity monitor? I believe it defaults to only yours

Is your swap space increasing?

Personally I prescribe to the free ram is wasted ram line of thinking and as long as my memory pressure is green and/or swap space is low. I don't worry about it

I believe OP means "storage" (HDD) , but not really "memory" (RAM)

 

[megarockman24]

I believe OP means "storage" (HDD) , but not really "memory" (RAM)

Yes I’m talking about storage not ram.

 

[maflynn]

Gotcha. I took memory as ram

 

[h9826790]

Yes I’m talking about storage not ram.

Just few GB vary is pretty normal. The OS need few GB storage to operate normally. Caching, indexing, logging, maintenance, SWAP.... many usage need storage.

For your info, I made a screen capture about the OS storage usage yesterday, and another on today. That's about 10GB difference. Even I am with HS, and you are with Yosemite. I will still say no need to worry about it.

(21 Jan 2018 20:56)

(22 Jan 2018 16:07)

 

[megarockman24]

For the longest time I’ve had less than 20 GB of storage available (I know this is not good) and I have been okay since I barely did any work on my imac that required more disk space. I deleted 30 GB of files because I got the “system is running out of storage” warning and in the blink of an eye (around 10 minutes or so) my storage filled up mysteriously and I got the same warning again. This is what caused me to investigate what is causing it. Is that an app you are using in your screenshot? Or is it a HS feature?

 

[h9826790]

Is that an app you are using in your screenshot?

Just the native screen capture function. OSX has this long time ago.

1) Press "Command + Shift + 4"
2) Hit "Space bar"

Now you will see the mouse cursor changed to a camera. Hover the camera over the windows you want, left click the mouse. Then you will take a "picture" of that window.

I deleted 30 GB of files because I got the “system is running out of storage” warning and in the blink of an eye (around 10 minutes or so) my storage filled up mysteriously and I got the same warning again.

Yeah, this sounds very wrong then. Is there any chance your Mac is doing some local Time Machine backup?

 

[maflynn]

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

 

[Smoothie]

Could the disk usage be related to local Time Machine snapshots?

 

[megarockman24]

Just the native screen capture function. OSX has this long time ago.

1) Press "Command + Shift + 4"
2) Hit "Space bar"

Now you will see the mouse cursor changed to a camera. Hover the camera over the windows you want, left click the mouse. Then you will take a "picture" of that window.



Yeah, this sounds very wrong then. Is there any chance your Mac is doing some local Time Machine backup?

Sorry, I should've clarified. I was asking about the app featured in your screenshot. Is that an app I need to download or a High Sierra feature?

I'll download OmniDiskSweeper when I get home later today and I'll get back to you. I don't have Time Machine enabled but how can I check if it's doing local snapshots? I only use Time Machine manually and back it up once a month (or whenever I remember!)

 

[kschendel]

I'm not sure how to check the status; you can disable local snapshots by opening a Terminal and entering:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

It will prompt for your login password. Disabling local snapshots deletes any that exist, so you should be able to tell whether it made a difference right away.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Ahh the joy of using cloning software vs. Time Machine.

Backup when you want with no 'snapshots' taking up valuable space on drives with very limited free space.

 

[h9826790]

Sorry, I should've clarified. I was asking about the app featured in your screenshot. Is that an app I need to download or a High Sierra feature?

I'll download OmniDiskSweeper when I get home later today and I'll get back to you. I don't have Time Machine enabled but how can I check if it's doing local snapshots? I only use Time Machine manually and back it up once a month (or whenever I remember!)

Oh, sorry about that. I think that's a new function introduced in Sierra. But should not available in Yosemite.

Disk Inventory X is also a good (and free) tool to find the missing space.

http://www.derlien.com