How to Tell if a Mac Needs More RAM Using Memory Pressure
MacOS includes a built-in way to assess memory usage, called Memory Pressure, and it can give you a lot of insight into your Macs performance, and whether or not you need more RAM. This is particularly informative if you feel like your Mac is slow, apps and media are stuttering, or you’re experiencing the annoying spinning beachball cursor.
By using Activity Monitor, you can quickly determine whether your Mac has enough memory for your workload, or you can see if upgrading RAM (or choosing more RAM on a new Mac purchase) would make a noticeable difference.
If you’re in the market for a new Mac, don’t skip this, as assessing your current Mac’s Memory Pressure status can let you know if choosing the higher RAM models on a new Mac will make sense for you.
What is Memory Pressure on Mac?
Memory Pressure is a real-time indicator in MacOS that shows how efficiently your Mac is managing available RAM, and virtual memory.
Rather than focusing only on how much memory is being used, Memory Pressure reflects a summation of available free memory, memory compression, swap usage (virtual memory, which uses disk as temporary RAM), and overall system demands on memory. This makes it a much more useful metric than simply looking at RAM used or free RAM alone.
How to Check Memory Pressure on Mac with Activity Monitor
You can find Memory Pressure within Activity Monitor, the Mac task manager equivalent, where it’s under the Memory tab. Here’s how to view it on your Mac:
- Open “Activity Monitor” from Spotlight or via /Applications/Utilities/
- Click on the “Memory” tab
- At the bottom of the Memory section within Activity Monitor, look for the “Memory Pressure” graph
The Memory Pressure graph updates in real time, and uses a simple color system to indicate memory pressure status.
Memory Pressure Colors & Meaning
- Green: normal memory usage, indicating the Mac has sufficient RAM to handle current tasks. This means memory is being managed efficiently, little to no swap/virtual memory is being used, and performance on the Mac should be optimal and smooth.
- Yellow: memory usage under pressure, indicating the Mac is working harder to manage memory. This usually means there’s swap and virtual memory being used, memory compression is more aggressive, free memory is low, and you might notice slowdowns or media/apps stuttering.
- Red: high memory pressure, suggesting the Mac is running out of available memory. Significant memory pressure is occurring, MacOS is engaging in heavy swap usage and virtual memory utilization, and performance of the Mac is likely to feel slow, laggy, and not optimal. You might even notice delays in simple tasks like typing on the Mac.
If Memory Pressure regularly turns red, or is sluggish and frequently in the yellow, your Mac would benefit from more RAM.
How Memory Pressure Helps Decide If You Need More RAM
Memory Pressure offers insight into your Macs memory usage, and whether or not you would benefit from either upgrading RAM on an existing Mac, or choosing more RAM when you make a purchase of a new Mac.
Check on Memory Pressure periodically throughout a standard week of working on your Mac. You can even leave Activity Monitor running all the time and turn it’s Dock icon into a neat little performance monitor.
If your Mac never feels slow, and your Memory Pressure is consistently in the green when you check during workflows, that suggests the current amount of RAM you have is sufficient for your current workload.
If the Mac feels a little sluggish and Memory Pressure is yellow, that suggests you are experiencing or near the limits of your RAM and you might benefit from an upgrade now or in the future.
If your Mac is frequently slow, beach balling, sluggish, stalling, and performance is not great, and your Memory Pressure is red, that indicates you likely need more RAM.
Remember, RAM on an Apple Silicon Mac can not be upgraded after purchase, as it’s part of the unified chip architecture. This means you’ll want to know how much RAM you need currently, and potentially in the future, before making a RAM decision with your new Mac purchase.
Should you get a Mac with more RAM?
Generally speaking, we always recommend getting the most amount of RAM you can afford when getting a new Mac. life. This is especially relevant today with Apple Silicon Mac architecture having memory on the chip and being impossible to upgrade after purchase. Apps and the operating system are increasingly memory hungry, that’s just a fact of modern computing. That doesn’t mean the default amounts of RAM that Apple offers are insufficient, it just all really depends on your workflow, and how long you intend to own or use the Mac for.
More RAM not only helps a Mac perform well in the present, but it also gives you more future-proofing and longevity. Future versions of MacOS and future apps are likely to use more memory in general, and it’s also possible that your future workflow and workload might change to include more RAM hungry tasks. Maybe a year or two from now you’ll be doing video editing on your new Mac? Who knows, but if so, you’ll be glad you got the most RAM you could at the initial purchase.
Almost every Mac now defaults to having 16GB RAM from Apple, except for the MacBook Neo which has 8GB RAM. But almost every Mac, except for the Neo, can be upgraded during purchase as well, going from 16GB to 24GB, 32GB, 64GB, or more, depending on the Mac model you’re looking at.
A sweet spot for many users who engage in a lot of multitasking is 24GB. But, if you’re the type of Mac user that has hundreds of browser tabs open, engaged in photo editing, video editing, using virtual machines, local AI agents and LLMs, running Xcode, and those sorts of things, you’ll be much happier with 32GB RAM, 48GB RAM, 64GB RAM, or more if you can afford it.
Memory upgrades aren’t cheap, however, so that’s also why looking at your memory pressure during your current Mac usage, can help you to make an informed decision, and to determine if the upgrade price is worth it.
In the screenshot example below, you will see memory pressure is yellow, and it’s basically always yellow and sometimes even red during my standard workflows. This indicates that more RAM would be beneficial for me and my workload, and so despite this being on a Mac with a generous 24GB RAM, I will be choosing 32GB RAM or more in a future Mac purchase:
Check Memory Pressure, Let it Help Determine Your RAM Needs
Use the Memory Pressure feature in Activity Monitor to assess your current RAM usage with your workloads throughout a standard week of Mac usage. Check once or twice a day, see if you’re seeing green, yellow, or red memory pressure. If you’re frequently seeing yellow, or red, that means the Mac is struggling to manage memory, and you’ll almost certainly benefit from more RAM now, or when making a purchase decision.
Checking on Memory Pressure offers a really simple way to determine if your Mac needs more RAM, or if more RAM makes sense for a new Mac purchase, as the Memory Pressure graph provides a quick and reliable answer on your memory usage, during real-world usage of your Mac.
So, if you’ve ever wondered how to determine if your Mac needs more RAM, or if your Mac is running slow due to memory issues, Memory Pressure is a great way to determine that.
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Do you ever check on Memory Pressure? If so, what do you find? Do you have enough RAM as is, or would you get more with a future purchase? Have you used Memory Pressure to make a decision on RAM upgrades and Mac choice? Share your perspective and experiences in the comments.
