Where is all of my memory?

[benjohnson]

I am clueless here, I've done research, tried to find a program to analyze memory better, etc. and I have got no where. Hopefully someone can help me out here or point me in the right direction.

I have 4gb of memory, my activity monitor is showing programs that are using about 1.5gb, yet the graph below says I am using close to 4gb, which makes no sense.

How do I find out what is eating my memory? Thanks for your help.

Here is a picture of my activity monitor so you can see for yourself.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Inactive: 1.46GB

The graph shows 100%. That's what graphs do. You have plenty of free RAM.

 

[Sun Baked]

Nothing is wrong, read the definitions for those 4 memory types.

 

[edesignuk]

That 1.46GB of inactive memory is also available I think. Inactive stores stuff that OS X has decided apps might want fast access to, but that don't need it immediately. If something else comes along that needs some RAM some stuff in the Inactive that hasn't been used in a while will be pushed out and the new stuff pushed in.