Zotero using 500 MB memory (RAM)

jonahpearl
I recently updated my Zotero standalone app to the latest version, and also updated my mac's OS (macbook pro 2015, 8 GB ram, OS Catalina (10.15.6)). According to activity monitor, when Zotero is sitting around doing nothing (finished syncing), it's using ~ 500 MB of RAM. That seems like quite a bit... is it pre-loading papers it expects me to open? Is there a way to reduce this to free up RAM for other programs? Thank you :)
  • dstillman
    Yes, that's normal, particularly for a cross-platform app — e.g., Thunderbird, which is based on the same Mozilla architecture, uses ~900 MB for me at startup.

    Zotero isn't preloading any files, but, due to various technical limitations, it needs to preload library data in order to do proper sorting of the items list and to avoid delays while interacting with your library. That said, we're always trying to optimize things, and we may be able to decrease the memory footprint in the future, purge some data while Zotero is in the background, etc.
  • dstillman
    (To be clear, though, this isn't anything new — the current behavior hasn't changed since Zotero 5 debuted in 2017.)
  • jonahpearl
    Great, thank you.
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