Memory management in OS X is done primarily by the operating system's virtual memory system; however, there are a few approaches you can take to force the system to clear some aspects of its memory structure and free it up either for troubleshooting purposes or to perhaps help performance.
Part of the memory system in OS X is a cache, where recently used program information is stored so the system can more swiftly launch the program if needed. If you open the Activity Monitor utility in OS X and view the System Memory section, you will see this cache represented by a blue "inactive" wedge of the memory-use chart. Usually this is the same as free memory for the system to use and should be dynamically cleared as RAM demands increase, but sometimes this process may not occur or you might wish to troubleshoot a system with a minimal cache so applications launch essentially from scratch.
Since the OS manages memory, there is no way to simply turn this feature off; however, you can force the system to clear this cache by using a program to maximize the memory usage and demand as much physical RAM as possible from the system. While the resulting increase in free memory from doing this is temporary, it will for a while force the system to clear the cache and relinquish as much free RAM as possible.
To aid in doing this, several developers... [Read more]
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