Mac Mini m2 Pro - 16GB vs 32GB

[EugW]

Well, yes, but the reason you are in the yellow is because you are running an application with a problem (Photos, in this case) and that's causing the problem. If you fix the problem, you won't have a RAM issue anymore. You don't need more RAM; you need to run better apps.

I know. I already said as much. Photos is the problem here, and I'm not saying otherwise. In fact, that was on my 24 GB iMac but when I got my Mac mini, I got 16 GB because that's generally all I need.

Given I suspect Apple would quickly fix any Photos memory leak problems, I am guessing there's a plug in or something else interfering with it.

Apple has not fixed this Photos problem after almost a decade. The problem is that if you have a very large library, and you try to export the originals from the entire library all at once, it will usually crash because of this memory problem. And this is a core Photos feature. I don't have any plug-ins installed at all.

It is especially stupid because zero image processing is actually necessary. All the original images are already within the database. $20 third party apps can do it with basically no memory usage.

 

[foo2]

I think we can agree, before we blame low RAM and think we need more memory, instead look in Activity Monitor for out-of-control errant/buggy processes, and kill them.

It's more common than one might hope.

 

[Basic75]

I have the usual corporate apps open usually-- MS Word, Outlook, Teams, and then the Adobe Suite-- usually use Adobe XD, occasionally some photoshop, illustrator or indesign, nothing really demanding there these days.

Personally I wouldn't get less than 32GB if I wanted to run the Adobe suite.