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theMotoMan's avatar
theMotoMan
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

M1 macOS version uses 500+MB or RAM

I use an 8GB MacBook Air and it routinely runs out of RAM and starts running slow.  I recently was checking to see what the memory hogs are and the biggest is the browser, but I see that DropBox takes a minimum of 500MB (when the subprocesses are included), which is too high for something that is just syncing files.  My Synology Drive Sync Client uses only 60MB.

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hi there theMotoMan, thanks for flagging this with us.

     

    Can you clarify the desktop app's exact version and status when you notice the RAM spikes as shown in your menu bar?

     

    Thanks so much!

    • theMotoMan's avatar
      theMotoMan
      Explorer | Level 4

      The 500+MB of RAM usage (including all subprocesses) is not a "spike", it takes up that much all the time. The syncing was idle when I took the screenshot.  BTW, it was like this with macOS 12 too.  I have wiped my disk and did a clean install of macOS 13.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      • theMotoMan's avatar
        theMotoMan
        Explorer | Level 4

        Here is another data point.  This info is from my M1 Mac mini 16GB model running macOS Ventura 13.1.  The previous reply was data taken from my 2020 MBA 8GB.  Again, I will mention, the 500+MB memory usage is not a "spike", that is normal memory usage.

         

        In the second activity monitor screenshot, you can see the memory usage is actually much more than 300MB when you factor in the DB helpers and Activity Provider - 515.1MB!

         

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