What wired memory means on a Mac, and why you cannot free it
Wired memory is held by macOS itself and can never be compressed or swapped. Ours was 1.5 GB of 8 GB. What uses it and when a large figure means something.
What is wired memory?
Memory that must stay exactly where it is: the kernel, drivers, and memory the graphics hardware and some system services lock in place. It cannot be compressed or written to swap, which is why macOS keeps it as small as it can.
| Reading on our Mac | Value |
|---|---|
| Wired (top) | 1.5 GB |
| Wired pages (vm_stat) | 95,681 pages of 16 KB, about 1.5 GB |
| Total memory | 8 GB |
Why is wired memory high?
- Virtual machines and container tools that reserve memory for a guest system.
- Graphics work: big displays, many windows, GPU heavy apps.
- Drivers from security, VPN or audio software.
Quitting a virtual machine or container tool is the usual way to see wired memory drop by gigabytes; see virtual machines taking up space.
See it live
Free Mac's System tab reads processor, memory, network and battery once a second, with the busiest processes ranked below, and every tile opens into detail. See also memory pressure.
Related: Load average explained and Check CPU usage from Terminal.
Common questions
What is wired memory on a Mac?
Memory locked in place for the kernel, drivers and hardware. It cannot be compressed or swapped.
How much wired memory is normal?
Ours was 1.5 GB of 8 GB with no virtual machines running.
How do I reduce wired memory?
Quit what reserves it: virtual machines, container tools and GPU heavy apps.