Speed up OSX Lion tips
Out of context: Reply #27
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^ That meter isn't accurate, it's missing inactive memory which I'm guessing it's lumping in with "Used" memory so that when you press the button it seems like it's doing something good when actually it's doing bad. Snake oil if you ask me.
Can we have a screenshot of this part of Activity Monitor to compare with "Memory Scope"
The main problem is people seem to think inactive memory is bad (and I believe this Memory Scope app is lumping inactive memory with used memory which isn't right), Inactive memory is recently used cached memory.
For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from the slower hard disk.
By "freeing memory" with apps like this or by repairing permissions you are actually slowing your computer down.