Choose Apple menu  About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail. Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. MemoryClean 2 from Fiplab is super easy to use. Once downloaded, this app will purge your Mac's inactive memory. Select the MemoryClean Icon from your top Apple menu bar.

If you're plagued by the “Your system has run out of application memory' message or your Mac is suddenly acting slow and sluggish, you might be wondering how to check the memory on your Mac?

There is no denying MacBooks are powerful computers, but they do have limitations. Luckily, we can do plenty to resolve this issue and get your Mac running smoothly again.

Knowing how to reduce memory usage on your Mac is essential, so let's jump in and look at how we can check and reduce memory usage.

What is RAM?

RAM (Random Access Memory) is essentially your Macs short-term memory. It temporarily stores everything currently running in real-time on your device. RAM storage is considered volatile memory—when there's no power or every time you restart your Mac it gets cleared.

RAM vs Hard drive

Unlike your RAM storage, your hard drive is permanent storage; here you can store data for a long time.

When your Mac is using the majority of your available RAM, you might experience these issues:

• Spinning beachball

• Applications crashing

• Low on memory message

• Slow loading times

Read on to find out how to check and clear your Mac's memory.

Check your Mac memory usage

To check your RAM usage:

1. Open a Finder Window then Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.

2. Now select the Memory tab.

Activity Monitor shows all of your processes and how much memory each one is taking up.

At the bottom is a little graphical representation and totals, but what does this all mean?

App memory: Memory being used by apps.

Wired memory: Memory used by the system to operate.

Compressed: Memory that has been compressed to make more RAM available.

Cached files: Memory you can really use.

Swap used: Memory used by macOS.

If the graph under memory pressure shows a lot of red and yellow, your Mac is struggling for free memory; I'll show you how to clear memory on your Mac in the next section.

To check your hard drive storage:

Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage.

Empty Cache On A Mac

Here you'll see a breakdown of your hard drive storage. If you are low on space, press the Manage button, here you'll find Apples built-in storage optimization tool.

It's worth checking out the recommendations. These are all easy to follow steps that can help you optimize your hard disk storage. You can easily navigate through all the folders in the sidebar to remove and delete any old or large files taking up precious space on your Mac.

If you’re looking for more detailed instructions on how to free up hard drive storage, check out our article.

How to free up RAM on Mac

Knowing how to clean up memory on Mac is essential, here are a few tips to keep your Mac optimized.

1. Restart your Mac

Sounds obvious, but since RAM is temporary memory when your Mac restarts, it will empty the RAM and any disk caches, so this is actually a pretty quick and easy way of cleaning up memory.

2. Check Activity Monitor

Check Activity Monitor, and close down applications that are using a lot of RAM. Here's how:

• Open a Finder Window then Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor > Memory.

• From the list, select any process or app that is hogging memory and press the “X” to close it.

3. Tidy your desktop

The more icons you have lying around on your desktop, the more memory is used. Take a look at what's sitting on your desktop right now and have a tidy up.

I use stacks to keep my desktop in order. The Stacks feature categorizes items and puts them together in neat little piles. Double click anywhere on your desktop, and select Use Stacks from the menu.

4. Clear up System Junk

To optimize the available RAM you do have, it's a good idea to clean up your system junk, like temporary files, cache and incomplete downloads or old logs. You can spend hours trawling through folders, or you can use a dedicated tool like CleanMyMac X, to do all the hard work for you, in just a few clicks. Bonus points for this app being notarized by Apple.

Here's how to clean your system junk with CleanMyMac X:

• Launch the app — download the free version here.

• Select System Junk from the left sidebar.

• Press Scan, and then Clean.

5. Disable login items

Login items are another common source of memory usage. Unknowingly we can often have several installed that we rarely use, but they hog memory, here's how to check and remove:

• Select Apple Menu > System Preferences > Users & Groups.

• Select your user profile and then select the Login Items tab.

• Press the Lock icon at the bottom of the screen to make changes.

• Remove any applications you no longer want to launch when your Mac starts: select them in the list and press the '-' button.

6. Use a Mac memory cleaner

If you're really low on RAM or don't fancy poking around in all your files and folders, it can only be easier to use a Mac memory cleaner.

Here are my 2 favorite cleaners:

I mentioned this app earlier, so you might not be surprised to see it at the top of my recommendation list. Not only can CleanMyMac X help you clear your system junk (and a whole lot more) but it also has a handy Free up RAM feature.

1. Once you have downloaded the app, and launched it once, select the CleanMyMac X icon from your top Apple menu bar.

2. Under Memory, press Free Up.

Sit back and enjoy all that extra RAM.

Memory Clean 2

MemoryClean 2 from Fiplab is super easy to use. Once downloaded, this app will purge your Mac's inactive memory.

1. Select the MemoryClean Icon from your top Apple menu bar.

2. Press Clean.

If you opt for another tool, always check reviews, and make sure it's a trusted source.

There we are, now you know how to check the memory on your Mac, how to clear it and use a Mac memory cleaner. See you back here soon, for more great tips.

Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

• When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
• Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
• Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

• Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  
• Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  
• Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.

Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

• If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
• If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
• In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
• In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.

• If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
• In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
• In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

• Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
• Reminds you to delete used app installers
• Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
• Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

How To Clear Memory On A Fax Machine

• Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
• Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
• Move files to an external storage device.
• Compress files.
• Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

How To Clear Memory On Mac Air

Learn more

• The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
• When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
• If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.