Photoshop saying not enough RAM on Mac Pro Apple Silicon

[matteo5DC5]

after created a maximum of 10/15 levels it no longer makes me use the program because it tells me that the ram is full even if I set the use of the ram to 100%

[Akash Sharma]

Hi there,

Sorry that you're getting an error message in Photoshop saying that your Ram is full.

Which version of Photoshop are you using and what is the version of macOS you're running on your computer?

Please checkout this page on Photoshop Performance and optimize the app preferences to free up some memory:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

You can try freeing up RAM in Photoshop by closing all other images and invoking Edit > Purge > All.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Akash

[roel_boonen]

I have a Mac Book Pro M1 Late 2021 with 32GB momory and i am experience the same problem. I tried almost everything. Photoshop 22 and 23 are nog working with my M1. I have to go back to photoshop 21. Please Adobe fix this!!!

[D Fosse]

Normally Photoshop never "runs out of RAM". It just writes to the scratch disk, which is what it will do anyway under all circumstances. But it does need a bare minimum to run.

Keep in mind that the "unified memory" in M1 is just a fancy name for a shared memory pool between the system and GPU. Under normal Photoshop operation, the GPU will eat up a very large chunk of that, perhaps as much as half. So in effect, you have about 16 GB for Photoshop.

And if there is a bug in the GPU driver (MacOS in this case), the GPU may keep taking more and more of that RAM as you work. That's known as a memory leak. It happens.

Memory leaks can also happen in third-party plugins, that's another rather common occurrence. If you have any installed, disable them and see if the problem goes away.

Plugins always run outside Photoshop's address space, and so require their own quota of RAM. If a plugin uses a lot of memory, that's less for Photoshop. Yet the error will most likely be reported from Photoshop.

And again, just so it's crystal clear: never set RAM allocation too high in PS preferences. In your case I would keep it under 70%.

[D Fosse]

Don't ever set RAM allocation to 100%!

That will quickly choke the whole machine completely. Other applications and background processes need memory too!

Always leave 2-4 GB for the rest of the system. The more RAM you have installed, the higher you can set the percentage. With 8 GB, set it to 60%. With 32 GB, you can go up to 80% or so.

[adrianjx]

I am having this issue as well. Very frustrating.

System:

macOS Big Sur: 11.2.2

Photoshop: 22.2.0

Adobe Camera Raw: 13.1

Macbook Pro: Apple Silicon M1: 16 GB RAM, 2TB HD (Plenty of HD free)

Photoshop Ram Setting: 10984MB (77%)

File:

ACR Developed CR2 @ 6720x4480 8bit

Once the file is developed in PS from ACR, the error comes when I try to save the image as a JPEG.

[adrianjx]

SOLUTION:

I had Media Encoder open after having just encoded some video. According to Activity Viewer, the aerender process was hogging most of the free system memory. Quitting Media Encoder seems to have restored order.  

[steven@cigar.agency]

I don't use Media Encoder and still get the error message "Could not complete your request because there is not enough memory (RAM)".

It started with the previous (2022) version, in v.2021 it still works, but with the latest update (2023) I can't go back to v.2021 so I'm now completely stuck.

[Stuart29696345qghh]

yea, this is a bunch of crap.  New computer & photoshop is buggy & errors out.  I guess photoshop isnt what it use to be. 

[kevin stohlmeyer]

@matteo5DC5 @roel_boonen steven@cigar.agency Go to Photoshop Help Menu/System Info and copy/paste details in a reply. Post only once as the system takes time to process the large amount of data. This will give us a better idea of your setup and what could be happening.

[Derek Cross]

Hi Stuart

Welcome to this friendly forum. Note, this is a user-to-user support forum, if you have an issue, give the details of your system and the problem. Ranting may be therapeutic for you, but it doesn't resolve your issue. Most people don't seem to have the  "bugs and errors" you mention.

[Stuart29696345qghh]

Yes it was a rant because it is problem.  Obviously, because this post is 3 years old and still getting responses.  And just because no one else hasn't said anything could mean they just didn't bother to respond.  They might have just decided to go to a different product because who wants to work the bugs out of a product you just installed.  Isn't the whole point the software is supposed to work?  New computer it shouldn't be a problem right? I just wanted others to know it could be a issue for them before they waited there hard earned money.  It doesn't really matter to me at this point.  I uninstalled it and moved on.  Thanks for the response.

[Derek Cross]

Like all software, there are bugs in Photoshop, but not as catastrophically as you imply. We find on this forum that most problems are caused by a system issue, such as insufficient RAM, lack of spare disk capacity or an out-of-date OS. Also, there sometimes installation problems, usually sorted out by use of the Adobe Cleaner Tool.

[Tamandani311163808h7z]

I had the same problem... And as you said, i was just quiet hoping to for someone to post an answer until... I think I found one for some others:

Seems like the new version of Photoshop takes up a lot more space for configurations it used to take way less for in the past

What I mean is, I had a saved template of 300ppi that I used to always use in the older version that I realized was taking up 250gb to try and open a pic with in the new version. I scaled it down to 100ppi and everything was ok then.

May be worth giving a try

[Stuart29696345qghh]

Thanks but I downloaded a non profit software that's been working nicely.  & it doesn't crash or give errors. 🤷‍:male_sign: