MacBook Air memory leaks after sonoma update

[vinarski6k]

Hello, community. I'm reaching out to see if there's any news on when Apple plans to address the significant memory leak problems in MacOS Sonoma. This isn't the first occurrence, as we saw similar issues with Monterey. Since upgrading, I've been facing constant crashes due to memory leaks, and I know several clients with brand-new iMacs and MacBook Airs experiencing the same frustrations. It's bewildering that an OS with such a critical bug was released, especially given this isn't a new problem for Apple. Does anyone know if Apple is on top of this? Are these issues being tested for at all? Thanks for any updates or insights.

 

[MacsBug]

Usually the memory leaks are in 3rd party software. You need to make sure that you are also running the latest version of your apps, and limit how many apps are running in the background.

 

[TonyAguila]

What made you conclude that it’s a memory leak? What model MB Air is this, and how much memory and storage does it have? A common “memory leak” issue especially MacBook Airs, is from memory swapping because of lack of sufficient RAM and disk space. Try quitting out of apps as soon as you are done using them. Apps and processes running in background are the usual cause for swapping, which can indeed slow down everything.

What version of Sonoma did you install? In my experience, the latest version, macOS 14.5 (23F79) is the best version of Sonoma by far, and I started out with Monterey, Ventura, and then Sonoma on my Mac Studio Max, updating macOS as soon as an update became available. This may have caused problems with versions that came out prematurely with bugs, but Apple usually issues quick updates as soon as bugs are reported, especially for very recent updates. Honestly, I was never happy with Sonoma 14.4.x throughout its history. They got it right with 14.5 this time, I think.

 

[Rodananne]

Effective memory swap on a Macbook requires at least 20% (although opinions vary) of your storage free. You also need sufficient RAM especially if you have multiple background apps running.

Things like Anti Virus apps, cleaning apps (like Clean My Mac) anything that runs a "helper" app in the background and Log In Items (see Log In items in Settings).

You can use Activity Monitor to see whats using CPU resources and Memory as a guide.

It's easily tested by doing as Tony suggests; turn off everything you are not using at the time and check Activity Monitor to see what is draining your Memory. For example I found that DropBox was using 430MB.

 

[vinarski6k]

Thanks for the feedback. My MacBook Air M2 is the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and I’ve ensured that all my apps are up to date. I've been monitoring the Activity Monitor, and it seems the memory leaks are not isolated to third-party apps. Even system processes are consuming excessive memory over time. I'm currently on macOS 14.5 (23F79).