Photoshop has run out of Active memory

[Your Fotographer]

Very recently (within the last week) when running photoshop on my iMac I have been getting the Force Quit Applications pop up stating "Your system has run out of application memory".

The following are the specs followed by what I have done to try and rectify the situation (without any luck).

Specs

IMac, M1, 8GB Memory, OS Sequoia Version 15.2

Adobe CC, Photoshop 26.2

No files or documents stored on the computer.

The ONLY applicatons on the computer are OS installed apps and Adobe CC and at the moment only Photoshop.

Plenty of Storage and according to Adobe the minimum amount of "RAM" needed to run photoshop.

Images I am working with are 46MB.  Big but not any bigger than any of the past images I've worked on.

For the last several months I was working on a BIG project with multiple Adobe apps running at the same time.  (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) along with several open active Browser sessions.  All of this without issue.  

The project prior to the last was a HUGE photo editing project which lasted several months.  During this time Photoshop, with 8-10 High Res images were open at the same time, along with several web browsers.  All without issue.

The only thing that has changed in the last 6 months is photoshop upgraded from 2024 - 2025 and there may have been an OS upgrade at some point... neither of which caused any issues and were far enough in the past to not have been a direct cause of this issue.

The current issue is 2 RAW images opened in PS.  3 browser windows open, finder and possibly preview, and the error occurs.  

1 image open - no browser, only finder running - error occurs

System will freeze, go black and reopen to the log on/sign in screen.

I could be working all day (like today) without issue.  PS, Browers, completed several images... all going great... even had safari open (this has happened with safari and firefox), it was a good day.  End of day, decided to work on one last image... the only image open and the browser window... error occured, froze and kicked me out of PS.

Things that have been done to correct.

Called Apple.  They said it was an Adobe issue. - error still occurs

Tried to contact Adobe, they were experiencing larger than normal volume and I got kicked out of the Que.

Monitored "Activity Monitor" which shows green until it doesn't.  Nothing out of the ordinary is running. Even shut down apps that didn't seem like they needed to run - error occurs.

Updated PS - error occurs

Updated OS - error occurs

Uninstalled PS and reinstalled it -error occurs

Cleared Cache - Seemed to work, until it didn't, no matter how often I cleared the cache - error occurs

Tried running PS without Web Browser or any other apps running - error occurs.

Performed a complete factory reset on the iMAC, updated the software and only installed PS - error occurs.

This computer is only 3 years old and was working perfectly fine until last week.

What I want to know and what I have not been able to get any answers to is WHY?!

I do realize 8GB is the bare minimum needed to run PS, and with technology and the updates, AI and whatever else goes on behind the scenes that 16 + is what is needed.  However, I have seen people with 64GB of memory having this same issue... although they are editing videos.  Which I do sometimes... even with 8GB of memory.  

What can I turn off or disable that will allow me to contine to edit photos.

I do not have the budget to purchase another computer right now.  There has to be a fix, as everything was fine a week ago.  

Please help!

[Trevor.Dennis]

8GB memory is definitely marginal, and especially so if you are working on large projects.

How much free space do you have on your drive?  If you have more than one drive, how much free space do you have on the Scratch drive?

Look for any orphaned Photoshop Temp files in the root directory of your Photoshop Scratch drive.  If you see any when Photoshop is closed, then you can safely delete them.

What are your Preferences > Performance tab settings?

How much of that 8GB is alocated to Photoshop? Remember that the OS needs enough memory to work properly, and that Photoshop can use the drive for scratch space to expand its effective memory.  This does slow things down though.

What are you cache levels and tile size set to?  The lower one should be best for those large projects, but read the info at the bottom of the panel to see what best matches your project.

How many history states do you have set?  If you save frequently, then you can get away with less undo levels, which will free up memory.  I think the default is 20.

Try Edit > Purge to free up memory.  You obviously lose all undo capability when you do this.

Photoshop is not good at freeing up memory once it has used it.  You can close the project completely, and see less drop in memory used than you might expect. Saving the project and restarting Photoshop will fix that.

I do have a MacBook Pro, but I'm primarily a Windows user.  With Windows I can monitor memory, CPU, GPU, and Network use with Resource Monitor.  I am sure the Mac OS has an equivalent tool, so use this to help pin down what is happening.  i.e. is it Photoshop or the OS that is short of memory?

[Your Fotographer]

Thank you Trevor,

I will look into all of this and respond soon. I grately appreciate your help.

[LAMY2017]

Trevor just about covered it all.

Not mentioned: plugins. Deactivate, restart Ps.

Monitor: run the Activity Monitor (Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor.app)

I'm a crazy multitasker (aka short attention span) -- a dozen Firefox tabs, Apple Mail, Messages, WhatsApp2, CC, LrC, Ps, Preview, Pages -- sometimes all frequently open, Memory Pressure yellow, 1 GB of 8 free.

CPU? 80-90% free.

[Your Fotographer]

More info as requested.

HD is using 48.12 GB out of 245.11 GB.

PS performance in the screenshot below.

I have lowered the history states and increased the cache levels.  I'll test to see if this improves things at all.

I have also purged to free up memory and will continue to do so.  

Thank you for the info.  I do see I am running on bare minimum and will need to upgrade the computer, but dropping $2000 + on a computer at this very moment in time was not allocated for, so i am trying to do everything I can to keep going until this can happen.

What I did notice is the error occurs when I am using the selection tool.  This particular process seems to be what is using all the memory and crashing the program.

A response to Lamy's post.

There are no plug ins.

Photoshop has been uninstalled, reinstalled and the entire system has been reset to factory settings (2 days ago)

I too am a multitasker... lots of different apps and screens open at any given time... and up until a week ago, this was not an issue. Now, ewith ONLY one image open in PS, no other programs running... PS crashes.

I have been running Activity Monitor almost constantly since this issue started.  The memory pressure is green, until it isn't.  

I've deleted multiple items running, without it making a difference.  

The culprit is PS.  It could be the size of the images I am working on... but again, I find that highly suspect since the last big photo editing project I did, they were the same size if not larger and I has multiple images open and being editing on at any given time without issue.  This was only 2 months ago.

Thank you all for your responses and help.  I grately appreciate the input.  I do realize with your comments that I have done my due diligence.  Thank you.

[LAMY2017]

Three last stabs and then I'll bow out.

What are your settings for Graphics Processor's Advanced Settings?

I have Use OpenGL,  Anti-alias..., and GPU compositing checked. 30-bit Display is checked though grayed out.
(our machines have nearly identical settings)

Disk Utility>First Aid, then restart?

How about installing a previous Ps version, like 26.1?

Also, Sequoia 15.3 has just become available.

[Your Fotographer]

Thank you Larry

I ran Disk Utility.  I received the green checkmark. 

I didn't know Disk Utility existed.  Thank you for that. 

Graphics Processor Advanced Settings

Use OpenCl, Anti-Alias, 30 Bit (grayed out_ and GPU compositing are all checked

As far as the older versions of PS... The issue started on the previous version of PS. 

PS was updated to 26.2 two days after.  Same with the OS.

I greatly appreciate your help!

Michelle

[D Fosse]

Apple silicon with 8GB RAM isn't going to work. The GPU uses shared system memory. The GPU can use a lot, so those 8 GB are in reality anywhere between 2 and 5 GB. I'm surprised you can even launch Photoshop.

Now, Photoshop will nrmally keep running in low memory, because it uses the scratch disk to store the temporary working data. Provided, of course, that you have enough free disk space and the disk is fast enough to keep up. But a certain amount of physical memory is still needed just to load all the application components and keep an image open.

The basic rule of thumb with Apple silicon is to double the amount of RAM you would normally need. I'd say 32 is the absolute bare minimum, but preferably 64.

[Your Fotographer]

Thank you D.

I agree., and the larger RAM is the goal....

However, This computer was running perfectly fine, without any errors while using larger and more files and programs that used a lot more active memory and storage in general.  The fact that I am now using the bare minimum of apps and there are no files saved on this computer and it's been giving these errors for the last week, leads me to believe something changed somewhere with PS which caused this. I would like to undo whatever it was so I can continue to work until I can afford a new computer.