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M1 iMac running out of memory

B

beerglass007

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 13, 2008
565
107
I had a intel iMac 2017 21.5" with 32GB ram and never ran out of memory

Now have a M1 iMac with 8/8/16Gb Ram and constantly getting low memory errors

I'm not even doing much with it, just running mail, safari with about 7 tabs open, Photos app open, iMovie open and that's it 16GB gone

What is going on its awful
 
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Screenshot 2021-07-06 at 11.22.53.png
 
I don't know. This is not normal behaviour. What macOS Big Sur version is on your computer?

You can try to reset it to the default state. But first don't forget, to make a backup of whatever important data you have there.

If this doesn't help, than bring/send it back wherever you bought it and they should check your computer.
 
OP wrote:
"Like what. Its only 3 days old and got nothing on it"

You're still within "the return window".
RETURN IT and either get the 16gb RAM version, or wait for the upcoming "large" iMac that may have 32gb RAM options available.
 
beerglass007 said:
I had a intel iMac 2017 21.5" with 32GB ram and never ran out of memory

Now have a M1 iMac with 8/8/16Gb Ram and constantly getting low memory errors

I'm not even doing much with it, just running mail, safari with about 7 tabs open, Photos app open, iMovie open and that's it 16GB gone

What is going on its awful
Click to expand...
Do you need the Photos and iMovie app open at the same time? I get multitasking, but I don't see where both apps open at once provides any gains.
 
jav6454 said:
8 CPU Cores
8 GPU Cores
16 GB RAM

There are some models that have 7 GPU Cores.
Click to expand...
I don't think you can buy the 7 GPU cores variant with 16 GB of RAM. Or can you as BTO?

EDIT: nevermind. Yes, one can buy the 8/7 version with 16 GB RAM.
lxEPRhi.jpg
 
The screenshot you shared shouldn't trigger a low memory warning - it's only using 6Gb out of 16Gb.
The low memory warnings you are seeing - are they native MacOS warnings or are you using a tool to monitor performance?
 
JonaM said:
The screenshot you shared shouldn't trigger a low memory warning - it's only using 6Gb out of 16Gb.
The low memory warnings you are seeing - are they native MacOS warnings or are you using a tool to monitor performance?
Click to expand...
That is what bothers me too. OP doesn't write to much details anyway.
 
When you look closely you can see on the screenshot that memory pressure dropped dramatically a few seconds before the screenshot was taken. It looks like an application was closed about 5s prior to that screenshot:

Screenshot 2021-07-06 at 11.22.53.png


It'd be important to know what happened there as that application is most likely the culprit.
 
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jav6454 said:
…but I believe OP was just being thorough.
Click to expand...

Actually, being thorough is labeling what the numbers mean.

If actually getting an alert while less than half of the RAM is being used, I’d guess it’s an issue with a particular app.
 
beerglass007 said:
I had a intel iMac 2017 21.5" with 32GB ram and never ran out of memory

Now have a M1 iMac with 8/8/16Gb Ram and constantly getting low memory errors

I'm not even doing much with it, just running mail, safari with about 7 tabs open, Photos app open, iMovie open and that's it 16GB gone

What is going on its awful
Click to expand...

Looks like an issue with an errant website. Does this happen when you visit a particular webpage?
I have a 16GB machine and run about 25 apps simultaneously, including Excel with multiple large spreadsheets and Safari with 30+ tabs.
I have a large swap file but never hit the yellow. Only time I do hit the yellow is if I fire up a VM or visit a poorly coded website in Safari, which triggers the low memory warning.
Screen Shot 2021-07-06 at 12.09.06 PM.png


What version of Big Sur are you running?
 
beerglass007 said:
I had a intel iMac 2017 21.5" with 32GB ram and never ran out of memory

Now have a M1 iMac with 8/8/16Gb Ram and constantly getting low memory errors

I'm not even doing much with it, just running mail, safari with about 7 tabs open, Photos app open, iMovie open and that's it 16GB gone

What is going on its awful
Click to expand...
I would update the OS to 11.4, not use the 11.3 it came with. Do you have a sizable IMovie project? Sometimes Safari shows several caches for web pages, just quit and relaunch those web pages. Anyway I repeated what you did and that wasn’t present. Then again I am now using Monterey Beta 2 (PB).
 
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opeter said:
I don't think you can buy the 7 GPU cores variant with 16 GB of RAM. Or can you as BTO?

EDIT: nevermind. Yes, one can buy the 8/7 version with 16 GB RAM.
Click to expand...
Just a FYI
Besides the 3 listed configurations on the buy 24” iMac web URL, all stores get blue and silver models of the $1699 model with 16GB/1TB options selected priced at $2099 that you can pickup when in stock, just check pickup availability for local Apple Store locations online. They currently come in 1 or 2 a week to some stores. ;)
 
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Yeah, there's definitely something odd going on here. I've been running a 16GB M1 Mac mini since they were released, and I've never seen a low memory warning. I always have the following open: Spark email (beta), Safari with ~15 tabs open, Path Finder, Messages, Photos. I frequently run Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Logic, Studio One, and several others that can use a lot of RAM. Something strange is eating RAM, so you should do more digging in Activity Monitor to determine exactly what that is.
 
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