How we decide.

Seven numbers, every 30 minutes.

One reading

Taken every 30 minutes while the laptop is awake

Memory pressure

Red

Memory in use

14.11 of 16 GB

Swap on disk

2.8 GB

Compressed memory

4.99 GB

Graphics load

11.7%

Processor load

37.6%

Installed memory

16 GB, M3

What Apple says the colours mean

• Green Using all of its RAM efficiently.
• Yellow Might eventually need more RAM.
• Red Needs more RAM.

Apple, Activity Monitor guide

Never recorded, so never read into a verdict

• Redacted: Names of running programs
• Redacted: Computer and user name

Every rule is a line you can see.

• More than you need
• Right-sized
• Upgrade
• Cannot judge

Readings in the red

5% means upgrade. 50% hides your real need.

Readings in yellow or red

Under 2% may be oversized. 25% means upgrade.

Swap at your busiest

Swap alone is normal. 4 GB counts with strained memory.

Chip maxed out

Graphics 80% or processor 90%, in 20% of readings.

Memory we keep free

20% of RAM stays free at your busiest.

RAM against what you need

1.5x what you need, memory never short: oversized.

Show all thresholds 30 constants, generated from the code that decides

Constant	Value	Basis	What it means
PRESSURE_LEVEL_NORMAL	1 level	Apple	Green. Apple: "Your computer is using all of its RAM efficiently."
PRESSURE_LEVEL_WARN	2 level	Apple	Yellow. Apple: "Your computer might eventually need more RAM."
PRESSURE_LEVEL_CRITICAL	4 level	Apple	Red. Apple: "Your computer needs more RAM." Level numbers follow libdispatch.
LEGACY_COMPRESSED_ELEVATED_RATIO	0.25 ratio of RAM	Our judgement	Older captures without the OS level: compressed memory at this share of RAM counts as yellow.
LEGACY_COMPRESSED_CRITICAL_RATIO	0.5 ratio of RAM	Our judgement	Older captures without the OS level: compressed memory at this share of RAM counts as red.
WIN_COMMIT_ELEVATED_PCT	80 %	Our judgement	Windows: memory committed at or above this counts as yellow. Microsoft publishes no threshold; this is the line the report already drew.
WIN_COMMIT_CRITICAL_PCT	90 %	Our judgement	Windows: memory committed at or above this counts as red.
AT_LIMIT_RED_SHARE	0.5 share of captures	Our judgement	Red in at least this share of captures: the machine is pinned and true demand is unknown.
AT_LIMIT_NONGREEN_SHARE	0.9 share of captures	Our judgement	Also pinned: yellow or red this often, together with heavy swap.
AT_LIMIT_SWAP_P50_GB	4 GB	Our judgement	The swap level (median capture) that goes with the line above.
UPGRADE_RED_SHARE	0.05 share of captures	Our judgement	Red in at least this share of captures means upgrade. Apple calls red "needs more RAM".
UPGRADE_NONGREEN_SHARE	0.25 share of captures	Our judgement	Yellow or red this often means upgrade. Apple calls yellow "might eventually need more RAM".
UPGRADE_SWAP_P95_GB	4 GB	Our judgement	Heavy swap at the busy hours, together with the line below, means upgrade.
UPGRADE_SWAP_MIN_NONGREEN_SHARE	0.1 share of captures	Our judgement	Swap alone is normal on a healthy Mac, so it only counts when pressure was also yellow or red this often.
OVERSIZED_MAX_RED_SHARE	0 share of captures	Our judgement	Oversized needs red in at most this share of captures: none.
OVERSIZED_MAX_NONGREEN_SHARE	0.02 share of captures	Our judgement	Oversized needs yellow-or-red in at most this share of captures.
OVERSIZED_SWAP_P95_GB	0.5 GB	Our judgement	Oversized needs swap at the busy hours to be negligible.
OVERSIZED_MIN_SAVING_FACTOR	1.5 x	Our judgement	Oversized needs installed RAM to be at least this many times the size your demand needs.
DEMAND_PERCENTILE	95 percentile	Our judgement	We size for the busy hours (this percentile of the captures), not the average.
HEADROOM_FRACTION	0.2 share of RAM	Our judgement	The share of RAM we want free at the busy hours.
MIN_RECOMMENDED_RAM_GB	16 GB	Apple	No current MacBook ships with less.
GPU_SATURATED_PCT	80 %	Our judgement	A capture counts as GPU-saturated at or above this. The report already drew this line.
CPU_SATURATED_PCT	90 %	Our judgement	A capture counts as CPU-saturated at or above this.
COMPUTE_SATURATED_SHARE	0.2 share of captures	Our judgement	The chip is the limit when this share of captures is saturated.
CONF_HIGH_MIN_CAPTURES	100 captures	Our judgement	High confidence needs at least this many captures...
CONF_HIGH_MIN_DAYS	10 days	Our judgement	...on at least this many different days.
CONF_MEDIUM_MIN_CAPTURES	30 captures	Our judgement	Medium confidence needs at least this many captures...
CONF_MEDIUM_MIN_DAYS	5 days	Our judgement	...on at least this many different days. Below this the verdict is provisional.
CONF_BOUNDARY_BAND	0.2 share	Our judgement	A deciding number within this band of its threshold lowers confidence one level.
CONF_MAX_UNCLASSIFIED_SHARE	0.2 share of captures	Our judgement	More captures than this without a memory signal makes confidence LOW.

Most lines are our judgement, and the table says which. Think one is wrong? Send us your numbers.

What we compare against.

Each row opens its own page. Prices: Apple store, NL with VAT. Open data: catalog.json.