Photoshop sat hogging memory while doing NOTHING

[JasonBatley]

I think if I ever met the person in charge of PS development I'd probably get arrested. It's the only program that I use that simply hogs memory for no reason and causes my system to grind to a halt.  It just sits there with zero files open and zero tasks to do just guzzling memory - I just had to shut it down for the 10th time today as it was hoarding 18GB of memory while doing NOTHING. This has been going on for over a decade. Mind you I suppose it's par for the course from a company that can't even fix the CTRL D (deselect,) problem in over ten years.

[Sameer K]

Hey, @JasonBatley. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I'll need more info to help you figure this out. Please share the system info from Photoshop Help > System info > Copy and paste into a text document > Upload and attach here. 

Please test and confirm if the issue exists with Photoshop (Beta). You can get Photoshop (beta) from the Creative Cloud > Apps tab > Beta Apps section. 

If this does not help, please ensure no stale preferences in your Photoshop.

• Windows 10/11: Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [version]/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
• You can press Press the Windows key > Enter 'Run' > Enter %APPDATA%\Adobe
• Rename the Adobe Photoshop folder by adding a .old at the end. (Adobe Photoshop 2025 > Rename > Adobe Photoshop 2025. old), You can restore these preferences later if needed.(https://adobe.ly/4860qM9)
• Restart the computer.

These changes will give a fresh start to Photoshop as a fresh install. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks!

Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

[D Fosse]

Have you had files open? Memory is not released until you close Photoshop. This is by design.

Is memory usage steadily increasing with no computer activity?

Show screenshots from Task Manager > Performance - the memory tab and the GPU tab.

Also the full Help > System Info.

[AxelMatt]

I can't reproduce this on my machine. So I think it isn't a general bug. Unfortunately you haven't given us any information about your system. Therefore, all proposed solutions are a look into the crystal ball.

Is your system up-to-date? Do you have installed all recent updates and patches for the operating system and the device drivers, especially the graphic driver. If you have a NVidia graphic card installed, make sure that you are using the recent Studio version of the driver, not the Game Ready version.

Please provide a copy of your 'System Info'. This can be get from the Photoshop menu item Help > System Info. There's a copy button in the System Info dialog. Press this button and paste the info into your next forum post.

Please post ALL information from first line down to and including Plug-in Info. All other infos after the Plug-in lines can be cut out.