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I've recently purchased a MacBook Pro M3 with 8GB of memory, and I'm encountering a persistent issue where the system runs out of application memory. This happens even with relatively basic usage, such as having only Google Chrome, and Figma open. The system throws out-of-memory warnings.

Considering the "Pro" label and macOS’s ability to use swap memory, I’m surprised this is happening. I would have expected the system to manage this workload, even if it had to rely heavily on swap. Is 8GB of memory insufficient for these types of apps, or is there some optimization issue?

Has anyone else faced this problem on a similar setup? Any suggestions for how to address it without upgrading the hardware? Shouldn't macOS's swap file handle memory overflow efficiently?

Specs:

  • MacBook Pro M3 (2023)
  • 8GB RAM
  • macOS Sonoma

Screenshots (they're in Czech but they convey the context): Memory Screenshot

Thanks in advance!

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    Figma seems to be leaking memory heavily, or maybe it's just very inefficient with memory. You can tell the difference by watching to see whether its memory footprint increases with time. That's a problem only the developer can solve. But yes, if you're going to run that application, you would have been better off with more physical memory. If you bought the machine directly from Apple, you have two weeks from the date of delivery to return or exchange it. Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 21:39
  • 100% agree with @LincD. - 8 GB RAM isn't enough to do anything beyond using the most basic web browsing, email, chat, and office apps on current macOS releases. Additionally, Chrome is a notorious resource hog and I strongly advise everyone to avoid using it. Safari is highly optimized for macOS and you will notice an improvement in your memory usage by switching to it. (Not as big as if you were to stop using Figma, however.) Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 23:31
  • I agree with the above. However, I suspect that if you're getting hard out of memory errors, it's because you've run out of drive space to use as swap. I see it's already using 25GB, but I'd check exactly what you do have available. 25GB drive space is getting borderline dangerous. Commented Sep 9, 2024 at 7:36
  • I have around 300 GB of drive space available. 8 GB should be plenty as long as you have swap, no? But if what you're saying is true, how is labeling a MacBook that can't open 3 apps at once (even if the apps have poor memory management due to their complexity) as 'Pro' not deceitful advertising? Commented Sep 9, 2024 at 21:30

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