Free Memory Management Apps

My MacBook Pro has 4 GB of RAM. My iMac desktop has 8 GB or RAM. Both machines need more. 

As my workload grows the apps in I rely on also grows. For example, I never used iMovie much but now it's a part of my app arsenal. I use it frequently and the demand it makes on my computers is abundant. Along with the Adobe and Microsoft suite getting more use I simply have been running out of RAM.

Before purchasing additional RAM I decided to download several free memory management apps and see how they perform. I've narrowed it down to three very useful apps that I like to use in tandem (I may whittle these to two eventually). After downloading these apps they place their icons at the top right of the Apple menu alongside the clock.

One immediate advantage to using these apps is confirming you need RAM. There's no doubt my computers need more. But managing the memory prevents freeze-ups and the dreaded 'rainbow circle' icon that appears while you wait for your computer to free itself up.

The apps:

Memory Monitor - This app put's a graphic representation of your computer's memory in a circle. You quickly see your Free and Used memory. Simply clicking the 'optimize' button in the center of the circle frees up memory in a few seconds. Perfect execution! The improvement is minimal but when it comes to memory I'll take what I can get. The two additional apps below seem to free up even more.

Dr. Cleaner - This app looks more businesslike. There are no colorful images, just a window displaying the percent of memory your computer is using. Currently mine says 80%. Clicking Optimize improves this to 63%. It takes a little longer for it to figure things out but still less than 60 seconds.

Memory Clean - It doesn't display the % like Dr. Cleaner, instead it displays the actual amount of memory you have left. Their window is a bit more colorful than Dr. Cleaner. After using Dr. Cleaner my Mac displayed 2.95 GB of free memory. Clicking Clean Memory further improved this to 3.14 GB. There's another button in red that says Unlock Extreme. I suppose this is an even deeper level of memory management but it cost $4.99. For now, the free version works perfectly. One of my favorite features of Memory Clean is that you can set a threshold so if your memory usage drops below a desired amount it automatically runs. Amazing!

As you can see, the reason I use all three of these apps is that when one is maxed out the other seems to free up even more memory. No doubt they manage memory differently. In tandem they provide powerful memory management - for free - and put off a future RAM purchase that no longer is as urgent. 

If you are a in advertising and marketing using RAM hungry apps like I do, launch the App Store and download these three memory management apps. They're free and work great!