One of the most asked questions on all Mac forums is whether it is ok to buy a MacBook Pro with just 8GB or it would be better to upgrade to at least 16GB. Answers obviously vary from person to person, but the common consensus is it depends on which applications you are going to use.

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The problem with forums is that the more you read them, the more confusing it gets because people are suggesting solutions, but they do not know your circumstances. I don’t know them either, but I can help you to reach a decision by asking some questions and refuting some common myths.

Once you get all the required information, you (hopefully) will be able to make an informed decision which works best for you.

TLDR; Is 8GB enough for a MacBook Pro? In most cases, for anyone asking this question, 8GB of RAM would be enough for surfing the internet, checking emails and working with documents. People who do coding or computer design professionally and can actually benefit from additional RAM already know the answer.

And now let me prove my point of view.

Three reasons why you should never buy a MacBook with only 8GB of RAM

1. You change your mind every day

Last year you were an astronaut and were making deals with aliens on the board of Enterprise. Today you are a famous chef in a restaurant with 34 Michelin stars. And you suspect that tomorrow you may abruptly change your career and become a glorious JavaGrape and HDLM developer in a furniture store in Tinytown, AL.

As we all know, furniture store developers suffer from an outsized need for 16GB memory in order to track dozens of sofa purchases per year.

You asked the developer in the furniture store and she suggested to future proof your MacBook because otherwise, you will miserably fail as a glorious developer.

2. Buying a MacBook is like car shopping

You still remember the worst mistake of your life when you bought a 2 door Mini convertible in 2016. As soon as you signed the credit application you found out that the girl you met last week at your friends’ house is planning your wedding in May.

Within three weeks after buying a car you had buyer remorse. What were you thinking? How are going to fit your wife and three children that were born 10 days after the wedding to the Mini convertible?

No, you will not make this mistake again with your laptop. You will future proof and buy a MacBook with 43GB of RAM so you can watch pictures of your triplets in 3D.

3. Buying a MacBook is like buying a new iPhone

I met a lot of people who flip burgers in McDonald’s and they own last generation iPhones which cost a little less than MacBook Air.

“What’s the secret of the financial success of those amazing people?”, you wonder. How they manage to upgrade expensive iPhones every two years? The secret is simple and it’s called 18-month special financing (no interest if paid in full).

Let’s assume that the base MBP model with 8GB will cost $1799.00. With 18-month special financing, you will have to pay $100 per month (let’s ignore taxes). Can you afford payments? Ok, let’s move on.

Now, let’s add $200 and upgrade the memory to 16GB. Now, you have to pay $111 per month. Can you still afford the payments?

You nod. Your face lits up with a smile. You hide a heap of crumpled dollar bills in the back pocket of your Duluth pants and go to Apple site to apply for credit.

Two reasons why even 8GB is too much for you

1. What is RAM?

If you know that a Ram is a pickup truck from Dodge, you know that the right number is 3500, not 8. You frantically scroll the web page and finally ask me for help.

“Al”, you say, “there is no 3500 option. I would settle on 2500 or 1500, but I can’t find them either!”
“Calm, Padawan”, I reply, “8 is not 8. 8GB is 8 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 which is equal to …err… more than 3500 for sure. So pick 8 and don’t worry!”

2. You reading this article

If you’re reading this article there is a 93% chance that you are either a newbie or not very good with tech. If you were using Apple laptops for many years you would be scaring mortals on forums with unrealistic demands for computing power.

But, let’s get serious. We will use an elimination process to find those fancy people who will benefit from extra memory.

Why?

When solving any problem, it’s best to start with the “Why?” question. In our case, the question is, Why are people asking about choosing between 8GB and 16GB? There are two answers:

1. Apple allows to upgrade CPU, RAM and storage at the time of purchase and many people seem to start desperately googling to find out if upgrades are required or worthful. By the way, if are wondering if storage upgrade is required as well check my post about 128GB minimum storage for MacBooks.
2. The buyer knows that RAM in MacBooks is soldered to the motherboard and there is no way to upgrade it later.

If you’re already aware of limited MacBook upgradeability, then you should answer another question: If it was possible to add memory later would it solve your problem?

If you have previously owned a laptop, did you ever upgrade memory on them? Or did you buy another laptop?

In case if you have never upgraded old laptops, then chances that you would care about MacBook upgradeability are virtually zero. So stop worrying and go ahead with the new MacBook Pro with 8GB (or the same amount of RAM you already have on your current laptop).

Myth of future-proofing

When asking about RAM upgrades, most users talk about future-proofing their purchase. What does that mean?

Future-proofing is basically fear. A fear that one day Apple will release a new upgrade and I will not be able to use my MacBook. Or a fear that one day I decide to be a programmer or a designer and I will need more resources and now I am stuck.

Let’s first address the first fear. I always recommend having automatic upgrades on so the OS (operating system) on your laptop is up to date, has all enhancements (including performance improvements) and is secure. But the thing you don’t have to upgrade to the new OS.

In 2018, macOS Mojave introduced using about 2GB of RAM for itself. This figure stayed almost the same since 2013, which means that with 8GB of physical RAM, you have about 6GB for all applications.

If for some reason Apple decides to release a new OS which will demand 8GB then you don’t have to upgrade. If you made a mistake and upgraded you can always go back, especially if you have a Time Machine backup.

I work in the computer industry and I have customers who are still using 30-year old software!

Now, what about a career change? Well, I think I covered this already.

What’s the worst thing is going to happen?

Every time I am faced with a dilemma, this is a question I ask myself.

Let’s assume that I have only 8GB, and I installed an application that needs a lot of memory. In 99% of cases, it means that the application will run slow and only in 1% of cases it will not run at all. If there is not enough memory, the operating system starts swapping data between memory and the disk drive.

Back in the day, when we had HDDs, it would mean that the application will be unusable. Now, with faster SSDs, the performance is simply terrible but still tolerable.

If you have such an application, you may be forced to close all other apps to free as much memory as possible, which is inconvenient but doable.

Do you really need a MacBook?

This is actually a very good question. If you never had a laptop before, why do you think you need a Mac?

If you want to play games then you should know that the MBP is not a gaming laptop. Gaming laptops have specific requirements and the main requirement is a dedicated GPU (graphics processing unit). You can buy a gaming laptop cheaper than an MBP with the possibility of the future upgrade for half the price.

If you are a LAMP developer then maybe you better off with a Linux laptop?

PC laptop vs MacBook Air

Since we started questioning the feasibility of MacBooks as a class laptops, let me share a story about my laptops.

In 2014 I bought two laptops. First was a MacBook Air with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD. The second was a Dell XPS 15 (for the price of 15-inch MBP) with 8GB RAM and 512GB HDD. A year later, I upgraded my Dell with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD because I wanted to run a SQL Server on it.

Now, after 5 years, I have a chance to check a future proof myth. I don’t use either laptop for anything serious. On both of them, I only edit Word documents and browse the internet.

MBA runs as well as it used to 5 years ago. When I open the lid, it’s instantly on. When I edit documents, I see no lag. It still has an original battery which holds for hours.

Dell is another story. Did you notice that after 5 years, PCs get …tired. When I open a lid on Dell it takes 8-10 seconds until Windows shows a sign of life. It’s like waking a teenager for school.

When I type on my Dell, I have to periodically stop and see how letters are slowly popping up. One cool thing that Dell has is a TouchScreen Display which is very helpful. Because the touchpad on Dell stopped working three years ago. Did I mention that I had to replace the battery on Dell?

As for internet browsing, I call Google Chrome an equalizer. It’s equally painfully slow on both laptops.

How much memory do you really need on macOS?

According to LaptopMag 8GB will let you do anything except high-end gaming. They even backed up those numbers with some testing. Anyway, I kind of agree with them and you can use the chart below as a reference (at least for the near future).

I would add some exceptions:

1. If you’re planning to run VMs on a MacBook Pro, then you have two options: run only one VM at a time with low RAM settings or go for 16-32GB.
2. If you’re planning to work with Photoshop, Illustrator, and other design software, it won’t hurt to have 16GB.
3. If you’re planning to run Windows on MacBook go for 16GB.

Conclusion

• If you still not sure let me give you very simple tips:
• If you can afford additional $200 go for 16GB
• If you already have 8GB MBP and you notice a memory pressure go for 16
• If you’re buying for credit, go for 16
• Otherwise, buy MacBook Pro with 8GB

It’s very hard to tell how much power you need for a laptop when you not good with tech. But remember you have a 14-day return window. Install all apps during that time, open them all and stress test the system. Use the activity monitor to see if you benefit from memory or CPU upgrade.

Topics:

“No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow”, an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions, and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let’s put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.

First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.

“Your system has run out of application memory”

How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating “rainbow wheels” aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You’ll also see many browser applications crashing. You’ll be also thrown warning messages as “Your system has run out of application memory”. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.

How to check RAM usage on Mac

Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you’ve got left.

A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:

Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.

I’ve attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here’s what it all means:

App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can’t be freed up
Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps
Swap used: memory used by macOS
Cached files: memory you can really use

Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but “available memory” your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it’s a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.

How to free up memory on Mac

Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage

Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you’re looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don’t worry, you’re not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.

So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:

1. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups.
2. Click your nickname on the left.
3. Select the Login Items tab.
4. Check programs you don’t want to load as your Mac starts.
5. Press the “–” sign below.

Now, you won’t see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn’t require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here’s how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:

1. Download it for free and go to the Optimization tab.
2. Check Login Items to see the list of apps that get opened when you start your Mac.
3. Click Remove.

As you’ve already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you’ll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.

Tip # 2. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory

The available space on your Mac’s drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you’ve run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.

The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.

What to delete to free up space:

• Large unused files, like movies
• Old downloads
• Rarely used applications
• System junk

But here’s a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X— the app I’ve mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.

Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X

If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see “Your system has run out of application memory” message.

1. Go to the Maintenance tab on the left.
2. Click Free Up RAM.
3. Click Run.

As simple as that!

And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.

Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop

This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it’s cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it’s recommended to keep your Desktop clean.

You don’t have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.

Tip #4. Clear cache files

Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won’t save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.

8gb Ram For Macbook Pro

So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:

1. Open Finder.
2. From the Go menu, select Go to Folder.
3. Type ~/Library/Caches in the field and press Go.
4. In the window that appears, you will see all your cache files.
5. Press Command+A to select all files or delete files one by one.
6. Enter your user name and password to confirm.

If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don’t forget to empty the bin afterward.

Tip # 5. Tune up Chrome’s Task Manager

Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:

The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That’s the proper answer to why Chrome uses so much RAM.

I’ve been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It’s a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.

Mac Mini 8gb Ram

1. Go to Chrome settings (dotted icon in the top right corner)
2. Click More tools -> Task Manager
   

To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.

Tip # 6. Manage RAM usage with CleanMyMac X menu

CleanMyMac X has another useful and convenient feature for managing your Mac’s performance and memory usage. As you install CleanMyMac X and start it for the first time, it’s icon will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the CleanMyMac X menu. Here you can find updates on the current condition of your Mac and perform quick tweaks to increase your Mac's speed. Whenever you feel like your Mac underperforms, open the CleanMyMac X menu to check how much RAM is available and free it up as well.

Tip # 7. Close Finder windows

Okay, suppose you’re still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you’ll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It’s no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:

Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows

Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.

What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac

I’ve saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.

• Replace AdBlock (very memory-demanding) with a lighter extension
• Keep fewer opened tabs in the browser
• Restart your Mac more often to free up RAM
• Close all hung-up print queues

That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you’re looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to check application memory on Mac?

To check RAM usage on your Mac, go to Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities). In the Memory tab, you will see all the active processes that are using your Mac’s RAM. At the end of the window, there is a Memory Used graph, which indicates how much application memory is used.

How to find out whether your Mac needs more RAM?

Your Mac may be using almost all its RAM, but you don’t need more if it’s using it efficiently. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph shows the current condition of your RAM: green color means your Mac’s using RAM effectively, while yellow is a sign that some application or process is using too much of application memory. The red memory pressure signals that your Mac needs more RAM.

How to quickly free up RAM on your MacBook?

To free up RAM on your Mac, firstly, you should find out what app uses so much of your memory. The memory-heavy programs are listed in Activity Monitor, Memory tab. If there is an app you aren’t using at the moment, click it and press the “X” sign to quit it. This will, in turn, free some of the application memory

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