Memory leak on mac and zotero 7

Bardeamu · 2025-06-20T11:27:58+00:00

I have been using zotero for years now but recently I have been consistently forced to close the app because it went to appropriate over 10 GB of ram and almost crashing my computer. I am on a mac, with the latest update of osx and I do not use Zotero's pdf reader but google chrome. Would greatly appreciate any support to resolve the issue.

dstillman · 2025-06-20T12:11:39+00:00

Can you reproduce this in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”), which temporarily disables all plugins?

Bardeamu · 2025-06-22T08:22:24+00:00

Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I did that for the last two days and the problem remains. I have attached screenshots of activity monitor.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5861911/sdok8okonloy9sw8qq6f.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5861911/3j2kq105a8g60n0h804w.png

dstillman · 2025-06-22T13:44:25+00:00

And what do you have to do to get it to go up that high? Can you identify a particular action that's causing the memory usage to go up incrementally and not go back down?

Can you provide a Report ID?

Bardeamu · 2025-06-22T17:54:08+00:00

Really nothing special. I have zotero running on the background while I write on Scrivener and Obsidian. Every now and then, I will add a new reference to my Zotero Library, or use it to generate a citation. Thats about it.

dstillman · 2025-06-23T04:54:49+00:00

You didn't provide a Report ID.

But we'll need you to keep an eye on it and let us know what specific actions cause a spike in memory usage that doesn't later subside. We're not aware of any causes of this other than malfunctioning plugins. The reader can use a decent amount of memory, but it sounds like you're not using that (for EPUB or webpage snapshots either?), and even with large files that shouldn't get anywhere >10 GB in normal usage.