Wow...Safari is using 975 MB of RAM

[Steven1621]

Crazy, I know. Is this normal? I don't restart that often; I'm on three days of uptime right now. This still seems a bit excessive. I've got 2 GB of RAM, so it isn't a bit deal, but I have to wonder why a web browser needs all this memory. Any ideas?

 

[WildCowboy]

Safari does tend to be a RAM sponge...just quit and restart Safari every once in a while.

 

[mad jew]

I'm willing to bet a large portion of that RAM isn't Active (so it's Inactive), meaning it's not needed by anything else now, but if that changes then OSX will gladly realign it with whatever needs it most. This is a sign that you've had Safari open for a while and that you aren't even getting close to using all 2GB of RAM at the moment. So long as you're not seeing tonnes of beachballs, I wouldn't worry too much about it. As the illustrious WildCowboy said, restarting it will bring it back to sane levels again anyway.

 

[spicyapple]

975 MB of virtual or real memory? If the latter, then something's definitely wrong. Active RAM in Activity Monitor is something you should worry about, but free and inactive RAM can be considered the same thing and thus totally benign.

 

[Ladybug]

That is a lot, but think of this way..unused ram is wasted ram. Unless you're doing something else that requires the use of this ram, then there really no point in free'ing it up.

 

[mad jew]

Good point spicyapple. If it's Virtual Memory then you really have nothing to worry about.

 

[ddekker]

ram

where would one look to see how much memory is being used by apps? I have a powerbook 17" with a gig of ram and get the "gay spinning wheel of death" quite a bit... even just switching between tabs on safari..

DD

 

[miniConvert]

Spotlight for Activity Monitor.

 

[mad jew]

You might want to read through this guide on how Activity Monitor works to better understand where you're memory is being used.

 

[Cromulent]

where would one look to see how much memory is being used by apps? I have a powerbook 17" with a gig of ram and get the "gay spinning wheel of death" quite a bit... even just switching between tabs on safari..

DD

Go to Terminal and type 'top' (without the quotes).