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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.
15 Replies
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- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
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!
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.
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!
- Nancy
Hi theMotoMan! Sorry for jumping in.
Is there any chance that your Dropbox app is syncing more than 300k files, in general? Please also check this Help Center article, and let me know if anything mentioned there could be true.
No, I have a very minimal amount of files there. I mostly just use this for sharing a You Need A Budget database with my wife.
One question I do have, is what memory sizes are others experiencing? Even at 250MB or 200MB, that is still too large IMHO. DropBox has 8 processes running too, which on my system makes the total RAM consumption 564.1MB!
For comparison, my Synology NAS drive client (DropBox-like app) only takes 60MB.
- Hannah
Hey theMotoMan, can we actually email you, so we can look into this privately?
Yes, that would be fine. I receive emails from you already, so I assume you have my email address. I don't want to post it here in a public forum.
BTW, here is another data point - my wife's 2020 M1 MBA. It is using 538.5MB of RAM.
- Hannah
Thanks for the additional info! I just sent you an email, so we can continue from there. 🙂
Seems all OS do have the same problem
I have 6000 files running on Windows and a RAM usage of 300MB.
What can I do to solve this?
- Nancy
Hey McSpeedmouse! Sorry to hear you’re having the same issue.
Before looking into this further, can you please let me know if you’ve checked the Help Center article Walter linked above?
This can help us isolate the issue more and guide you further.
