Our Verdict
Memory Diag
Unless you ’ve spent a big money to max out your Mac Pro with a couple pair of 16 GB RAM sticks , there ’s a good chance you ’ve experienced the occasional OS go slowdown . Even with Mavericks ’ smart storage management , apps can still leak precious resource , make all but the newest Macs to feel downright sluggish at sentence . computer memory Diagwon’t necessarily take away these issues , but it ’ll help you nail your worry , contain the problem and get back to work .
Apple has always offered a way to track retentivity employment in Activity Monitor , but Memory Diag study that data out of the app and puts it into the bill of fare prevention . A tiny thermometer icon give you an approximation of how much RAM is being used by your system , and you ’ll see a wealthiness of information after dawn on it , most notably a colour - coded pie chart that breaks down your memory allotment and tell you which apps are doing the most damage . A second screen show a summary of the available computer memory and the amount of RAM install in each slot , though it would be more useful if it listed the type , too .
Along with key the worst offenders , Memory Diag ’s best feature film is its ability to promptly optimise your read/write memory usage . Tapping the centre button purges any fresh and unnecessary processes that may be gumming up the works . It mostly did well to quickly ease my system ’s nonaged memory strains , but unfortunately it does n’t work when use is at decisive levels .
I expected resource - intensive apps like Photoshop and iPhoto to routinely show up as RAM hogs , but the app helped me identify that Safari was using quite a bit , too ; resetting the web browser app and regularly optimise my memory helped add down the consumption considerably , and I ’ll be using Memory Diag from here on out to keep tabs on it .
This review is part of Macworld’sGemFest 2014 . Every weekday from July until September , the Macworld stave will utilise the Mac Gems blog to shortly cover a standout free , miserable - cost , or great - value program . you’re able to view a list of this year ’s apps , updated daily , on our handy GemFest chart , and you’re able to call in the Mac Gems home page for past Mac Gems reviews .
