Maybe Ron had something substantially bigger (or a lot of apps/processes/whatever) open/running at some point not so long before that check (and no longer has it/them open/running)... and the system hasn't determined it necessary to return whatever it put into swap space back into main memory yet.
OR maybe there is (also) some kinda memory leak issue on top of that perhaps.
Ron does also mention running a beta version of the OS, which could perhaps meaningfully increase the likelihood of some such issue.
Anyway, 1GB swapped (on a system w/ 64GB main memory and probably a 1-2TB SSD for the main drive) is not that big a deal however that happened, particularly if it happened over fairly long system uptime (of many days perhaps w/ various sleep time or hibernation in between), not soon after initial startup... unless there's indeed some memory bug that could lead to substantially bigger leaks.
WIndoze certainly seems to swap easily/quickly enough w/ 32GB RAM.
Here's a couple-year-old discussion about swapping on MacOS, which probably isn't outdated... and they didn't actually arrive at any real diagnosis/conclusion other than it's probably normal (enough) and nothing to worry about as long no noticeable performance problems, etc (just like I said), LOL:
Swap is used even though >50% of RAM is still free
New (ish) MBP 16" with 64G of RAM. I have never seen my RAM usage goes pass 50%, but have noticed the computer started using swap sometimes, about 3-4GB. Anyone knows why? I kinda notice that this only happens when I have the laptop unplugged, and the swap will not go back to 0 after pluggin...
The gist besides any noticeable performance problems was just stick w/ checking the memory "pressure" gauge, if any laymen care to check, and don't overthink it otherwise (nor try to outsmart the OS or fix what ain't broke).
The only single comment there I spotted that might add to what I/we've already said is that MacOS might be swapping a small/modest amount of largely unused data and/or largely idled processes as part of its sleeping/hibernating protocol (and might not return those content/processes back to main memory until actually needed). That would make some sense and might well be happening to Ron if his MBP has indeed gone to sleep (and reawakened) perhaps multiple times (or maybe even just once... I don't know). That might be something not everyone allows their system to do -- I certainly used to not let my Windoze PC go to sleep at all even though I often might not reboot for a month or two (or more)... including not allowing Windoze to update... but I stopped doing that mostly after I switched from HDD to SSD and felt Windoze was handling the sleeping/reawakening reliably and fast enough...
And yeah, I also used to be the kinda nut who might run Windoze w/ VM (ie. swap space) disabled or fixed to some size (as recently as Win XP IIRC),
but no longer... though I'm still the kinda nut who resists updating my OSes for extended periods... NVM running betas like Ron does, LOL... 
_Man_
Last edited:
