The best memory cleaners: speed up your Mac

If you’re looking for the best memory cleaner for Mac in 2026, you’ve landed in the right spot. There’s nothing worse than a slow and unresponsive Mac. RAM cleanup tools can certainly assist, but the real win is knowing when your Mac actually needs help and which tool matches your habits. I’ve tested the best tools out there, so here’s what I found.

Do you really need a Mac memory cleaner?

When RAM is tight on your device, small things feel heavy. Tabs stop responding. App switching lags. You hit Save, and nothing happens for a second. That is memory pressure, not just used RAM.

Open Activity Monitor > Memory tab and look at Memory Pressure down at the bottom.

• Green means fine.

• Yellow means the system is compressing and swapping to SSD.

• Red means you will feel it everywhere.

If you don’t want to babysit Activity Monitor, try CleanMyMac’s Menu App. It shows live memory pressure in the menu bar, turning red only when your intervention is actually required. You can test it for 7 days — get your free trial here.

Ok, so hopefully this section helped you figure out if you really do need a memory cleaner for your Mac. If so, keep on reading.

The best memory cleaners for Mac in 2026

Here are my top-rated tools, the ones that actually stayed on my device, after I was finished testing. I cared about two things: can they relieve a spike quickly, and do they help me see the cause so I can fix it at once?

1. CleanMyMac: Best for comprehensive maintenance

The menu bar real-time readout is the star for me. You can press the Free Up RAM task for quick relief, plus it comes with a list of Heavy Consumers that can quit right from the menu. When you pair that with the rest of the suite, especially if you suspect a slowdown is also being caused by cache bloat or login items you forgot about, this tool is way more than a simple RAM cleaner.

2. Memory Clean 3: Best for budget users

This tool from FIPLAB is a simple menu utility that purges inactive memory on command and on a timer. It is not magic, and it cannot fix a runaway Chrome window, but it gives you manual control with a minimal footprint.

3. iStat Menus: Best for power users

Not officially a cleaner, more like an extensive dashboard. iStat Menus has CPU, GPU, RAM, sensors, and fans monitoring. So, if you like to visually see the pressure points, swap app usage at a glance, and decide for yourself, this is the one. Use it to catch the pattern that keeps causing spikes.

4. Nektony Memory Cleaner: Best free basic option with auto-clean features

Free, small, with auto clean triggers. Nektony Memory Cleaner clears caches and inactive memory, and shows a simple graphic so you know what changed. Good starter choice if you refuse to spend money yet.

Don’t underestimate your browsers

If you’ve got a ton of browser windows open, don’t be surprised by just how much memory resources they can drain. One tab can take hundreds of megabytes on its own. I have had sessions where a handful of sites pushed memory usage to 3-6 GB.

• Safari is usually leanest on macOS.

• Chrome is flexible and extension-friendly, but every extension and site sandbox adds overhead.

• Firefox sits between them for many workloads.

Extra browser tips

If it’s your browser pushing your Mac to its limits, then a memory cleaner will help, but the real fix here is pruning back your open tabs and managing your plugins.

If your DNS or network cache junk caused your browser to run slowly, use the Performance feature from CleanMyMac, which includes a Flush DNS Cache and other browser-related junk; here’s how:

1. Open the app and select Performance > Scan.

2. Click View All Tasks and select Flush DNS Cache > Run.

Apple silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) vs. Intel RAM Management

M-series Macs use Unified Memory Architecture. CPU and GPU share one memory pool on the chip. It is fast and efficient, but not upgradeable, so your purchase choice matters.

Two counters to watch in Activity Monitor > Memory:

• Memory Pressure for how hard my system is working.

• Swap Used for how much did we spill onto the SSD? A little swap is normal. Gigabytes of swap during light tasks means either a specific app is out of control or you truly need more headroom than your model offers.

Remember that “free RAM” is not the goal on Apple silicon. Unused memory is wasted memory. The only time to intervene is when pressure climbs and your workflow stutters.

Manual ways to free up RAM

If you’re not sure which Mac memory cleaner is the best for you, then here are a few solid manual memory cleaning tips, no app required.

1. Restart your MacBook

This is really the only way to fully clear your wired memory and stuck processes. If you have been running for weeks, a restart is the cheapest and quickest fix you can do. Head to your Apple menu and select it.

2. Purge disk cache

You can free some caches with Terminal; here’s how:

1. Open Terminal Finder > Applications > Utilities.

2. Run the below command to clear caches:
   sudo purge
   

3. Enter your password if requested.

3. Trim login items

1. Go to System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions.

2. Turn off what you do not need every day.

Fewer background helpers will mean fewer surprise spikes when you first load up your Mac. Sometimes items sneak in here. When you first download them, you might have stuff launching at startup that you simply don’t need.

So there you have it, we’ve covered everything you need to know about the best Mac memory cleaner free vs paid, and some useful manual tips. Remember, small habits make a bigger difference: lighter browser sessions, fewer login items, and a quick maintenance pass after major updates will help to keep memory optimized.