# How to free inactive memory (Mac)?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-free-inactive-memory-mac/636652>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 4, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-free-inactive-memory-mac/636652 "2012-10-04T01:50:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-free-inactive-memory-mac/636652/1 "2012-10-04T01:50:29Z")

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Right now I’ve got over a gigabyte of inactive memory, and I’m trying to figure out how to free it up.

The purge command doesn’t work, because I’m on OSX 10.6.8. I read that Xcode would enable that command, but I need 10.7 to run that.

Any suggestions, purge related or otherwise?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Amblydoper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-free-inactive-memory-mac/636652/2 "2012-10-04T06:07:54Z")

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It is my understanding that you don’t need to do anything. When an application needs some of that memory, it will take it. But if nothing needs it, its better to leave it as-was incase you relaunch a program you used recently.  
[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342)