# Losing Memory



## steffanflowers (Jan 12, 2010)

Everytime i click on a new window i seem to lose about a mb of memory, i don't know whether its a virus, or an application gathering disc space or something else,   but it's really annoying and i keep on having to delete stuff to free up new space,   what do i do?


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## Giaguara (Jan 12, 2010)

Hi Steffan,

Where are you losing the memory from? As the reported space on your hard drive, as the reported total amount of RAM in your system, or something else?
In activity monitor?

What version of Mac OS or Mac OS X are you using? 
What application are you using? Finder? Safari? Something else?
How much total RAM do you have?
How big is your hard drive, and how much of it is free?

If it's Mac OS X anything, at least 15 % of the hard drive should be free for maintenance and self healing purposes.
If the space is really really low and you see space lost when doing anything - well that's normal, the system keeps lots of stuff you do in the cache. The cache size tends to grow from when the system is started until some application or the system is shut down. If this is what you are seeing, free more space - until you have those 15 % free (so 30 GB hd -> 4.5 GB free, 50 GB -> 7.5 GB, 100 GB -> 15 GB etc, as minimum)

Most likely the what to do would include either getting more space, getting another (internal or external) hard drive, or getting more RAM. But before knowing which one is appropriate for you, please tell a bit more. And welcome


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## steffanflowers (Jan 13, 2010)

Thanks for the help,

I'm running on a mac os x   version 10.4.11        its got 2 GB of RAM  and the HD has a capacity of 233 GB, though it says 231 GB is in use      adding up everything on the computer there wont even be 100 GB used.    

I have found another server under networks which has 50 GB free but i cannot get rid of it, even though it is no longer in use. 

 I use Safari as my browser, but it does not lose memory on just 1 specific application, this is all applications.    If i bring up the window showing the HD details all i have to do is click on another window,  then when i click back memory is gone.  i have tried this with word, itunes, safari, 
so what now?


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## Giaguara (Jan 13, 2010)

Hi Sfeffan,
Don't worry for the remote server showing in Finder - that isn't doing anything to your system. 

The problem is that your disk is very full. 231 GB in use out of 233 GB. On that size hard drive for the system to keep itself clean and self healing, you should keep around 40 GB free (that would be the 15%).

So what we need to do is get more space there.
This article lists some things that we can do to get more space, from removing unwanted printer drivers etc... 
I'd recommend also Disk Inventory X for finding where the space is now http://www.derlien.com/
If you use OmniDiskSweeper or otherwise have a look on anything that is in your [Macintosh HD]/System or [Macintosh HD]/Library, it's better to leave those two locations alone (they are part of the system). 
SpaceControl http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/33295 and iCleanLanguage http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10914672 may also be useful for you - you can get a few GB free space by removing all the localizations you don't use. So leave English and whatever languages you might use - rest is better reclaimed back for you.

At least one of those disk inventory tools will be good to use so you can see where the space is used now. 
Removing unused localizations is safe - if you use anything else than English I'd still recommend leaving English as a second language though.


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## Giaguara (Jan 13, 2010)

Hi Sfeffan,
Don't worry for the remote server showing in Finder - that isn't doing anything to your system. 

The problem is that your disk is very full. 231 GB in use out of 233 GB. On that size hard drive for the system to keep itself clean and self healing, you should keep around 40 GB free (that would be the 15%).

So what we need to do is get more space there.
This article lists some things that we can do to get more space, from removing unwanted printer drivers etc... 
I'd recommend also Disk Inventory X for finding where the space is now http://www.derlien.com/
If you use OmniDiskSweeper or otherwise have a look on anything that is in your [Macintosh HD]/System or [Macintosh HD]/Library, it's better to leave those two locations alone (they are part of the system). 
SpaceControl http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/33295 and iCleanLanguage http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10914672 may also be useful for you - you can get a few GB free space by removing all the localizations you don't use. So leave English and whatever languages you might use - rest is better reclaimed back for you.

At least one of those disk inventory tools will be good to use so you can see where the space is used now. 
Removing unused localizations is safe - if you use anything else than English I'd still recommend leaving English as a second language though.


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## steffanflowers (Jan 14, 2010)

as i said only about 100 GB is in use,    but i used omnidisk sweeper and it revealed that the remaining memory has been used up as backups,  this includes just about everything on my computer, including  my itunes and iphoto library which dont need backing up and are the largest memory users anyway,    i shall now proceed to cut down on the amount of stuff my computer backs up and delete the back-ups that are just not needed...

thanks for you help

Steffan


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## Giaguara (Jan 14, 2010)

Glad to hear that the space was somewhere as easy to then take care of  
It would have been much more complicated if you had e.g. FileVault on and all the space in your home folder....
And good that you make backups


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