I pretty regularly have Slack running while compiling Erlang in the background, running a Docker container, several dozen Firefox tabs, and a Microsoft Teams call going, and I do not have problems with 16GB on x86. Perhaps ARM Macs use more memory or something. My next MacBook will definitely have more than 16GB if it’s available, but that’s more for future need rather than present.

She has problems with 16GB on x86. A single docker container and compiling erlang really don't use that much. It's many tabs of office 365, google docs, and social media, and how every app is an electron app now that eats memory.

I think we as programmers have lost sight of how a single gif in memory is about the same size as a whole docker container.

I don’t think that’s accurate, because Docker on macOS involves virtualization. And Teams is the worst resource hog I’ve used. Though I don’t use Office or social media much (Twitter occasionally) so maybe that’s it.

> because Docker on macOS involves virtualization

Go check out the resource usage. Yes, it involves virtualization, but the stripped down virtualized kernel uses very little resources. Getting that information is a bit complicated by the fact that it's difficult to see the difference between the virtualized kernel and it's applications in a way that's consistent with the host OS, but it's really in the dozens of megabytes range of overhead for something like docker on mac.

I guess I should say I don't disbelieve that your mother in law was having problems with the memory in her computer, I just find it baffling because I use mine extremely heavily and my RAM usage rarely peaks like 12GB.

Just to check, I opened simultaneous projects in Logic Pro and Ableton Live, I have a Rust project open in VSCode (Electron), compiling Erlang again, I have Slack, Discord, Signal, and Hey running (all Electron apps), and I have Firefox open with Twitter, Hacker News, Facebook (a dozen tabs, just for good measure), Instagram, FBM, Techmeme, NYTimes, CNN, and MSNBC. This is a 15" 2018 MBP with a 6-core i7 and 16GB of RAM, and the CPU is working pretty hard but RAM usage is currently at just over 12GB.

Unless you turned off swap, out of memory actually means out of swap, so probably the machine was out of disk space.

Safari shows a memory warning when a tab uses ~2GB memory, and can be too aggressive about it.

Activity monitor showed that RAM was full. She did not use Safari, but instead Firefox.

Well that’s fine, RAM is supposed to be full. You’re wasting it if it’s not full. If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps. (which tends to come up way too late, but whatever)

> If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps.

Yes, she was getting both. To the point that I asked her to keep activity monitor running in the background so we could see who the problem applications were.

I'm not sure why this is in question.

Because "physical memory" being high in Activity Monitor doesn't actually tell you things that cause that dialog to appear. (Unfortunately.) That and a 1GB Firefox tab isn't quite enough to do it.

If "compressed" or "swap space" approach 32GB+/64GB+ (depends on amount of physical memory installed) that can do it, but running out of disk space is a more common problem.

Of course, quitting the top app in the memory list probably is going to fix the issue.

I literally just confirmed that she was getting force quit messages.

I had to have her leave activity monitor open in the corner because it was running so slow it wouldn't open.