How to find an app with a memory leak on a Mac
How to spot an app whose memory keeps growing in Activity Monitor, confirm it over time, and stop it before it fills swap.
How do I know if an app has a memory leak?
Its memory keeps growing while you are not doing more with it, and only quitting it brings the number down. Normal apps rise and fall.
How do I find it in Activity Monitor?
Memory tab, sort by Memory, note the top three, and check again after ten idle minutes. In Terminal:
ps -axo rss=,comm= | sort -nr | head -5What do I do about it?
Quit and reopen the app, update it, and report it to the developer. Calculator using 32 GB is an extreme real example.
Common questions
How do I check for memory leaks on Mac?
Watch an app's memory in Activity Monitor over time; steady growth while idle is a leak.
Does restarting fix a memory leak?
Quitting the leaking app is enough; a restart does it for everything at once.