While you may be anxious to update your Mac to the latest operating system, it may be wise to hold off for now due to memory leak issues.<\/b>
\nApple\u2019s newest desktop operating system, MacOS Monterey, brings a handful of useful new features, but an assortment of issues as well. Some people are reporting memory leaks after upgrading to MacOS Monterey \u2014 some of which have even included warnings that the entire system has run out of memory. While new operating system rollouts tend to have a few bugs, this one seems particularly bothersome. Memory leaks occur when an application uses more memory, or RAM, than is necessary. This happens because the process in question doesn\u2019t release the memory that\u2019s allocated to it after it\u2019s closed and continues to use more memory, sometimes until there\u2019s none left. There have been a number of complaints across multiple forums, including Apple\u2019s own support forums, Reddit, and Twitter. YouTuber Gregory McFadden tweeted a picture in which Control Center was using a whopping 26GB of RAM. By comparison, Final Cut Pro was only using 6GB of RAM, and that\u2019s a full-fledged professional video editing program. Control Center normally only uses a couple of megabytes of RAM. The issue doesn\u2019t seem to be limited to a particular Mac model either. Users with M1, M1 Pro\/Max, and Intel versions have all reported memory leaks. One Firefox user with an Intel Mac reported Firefox usage of almost 80GB of RAM. While some users like Gregory McFadden had upwards of 64GB of RAM installed, a lot of others will likely have much lower RAM and will feel the pinch of a memory leak more acutely. This isn\u2019t the only major issue with MacOS Monterey. Those with older Macs who install the new operating system are at risk of bricking their computer. Many of the users reported Macs that simply wouldn\u2019t turn on at all after upgrading. While there does seem to be a temporary fix, that requires access to another Mac. Lest the Windows faithful get cocky, Windows 11 users have also reported memory issues. Windows Insiders found that File Explorer consumes memory even after being closed. We were able to reproduce the leak on both Windows 11 and Windows 10. Fortunately, it seems this is limited to just the File Explorer and not random programs like MacOS\u2019 issue. Regardless, the memory leak on MacOS Monterey could just be the teething signs of a new operating system. Apple will hopefully issue a patch to fix the leak, although MacOS memory leaks seem to be a common occurrence. At any rate, it may be worth holding off upgrading your Mac for now.<\/p>\n