Apple Pages apparent dramatic memory leak

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Level 1

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Apple Pages apparent dramatic memory leak

I'm running MacOS 26.1 on an M1 MBP 14".

What the **** is happening with this crazy memory leak on Apple Pages ??? (I'm just working on a 230ko document, just text, no images or anything. Been trying to restart Pages etc, always happen again after a few minutes or running Pages).

I don't see any updates available of Pages, but it's mind-blowing to now see how even core apps from Apple seems to be glitchy as heck... :/

Anyone found ways to address this?

Many thanks!

Posted on Dec 21, 2025 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,290 points

Dec 21, 2025 4:29 AM in response to Marian LC

This is not a Pages memory leak.

Read this timeless post that explains the reasons for Your System has run out of application memory.

There was no memory leak as that article will clearly explain. I would take a closer look at the non-Apple applications.

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Answer 2

Marian LC Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2025 4:51 AM in response to VikingOSX

Nope. Definitely not coming from a "non-Apple" app. I've been trying to reboot, killing everything else etc.

You can fin other mentions of the same problem on Reddit and other places. What seems to be common however is the fact that the absurd leak is common ... to other macOS apps.

But what DID finally solve the issue is updating from 26.1 to MacOS 26.2 (realised it was available after this issues drove me nuts and after trying virtually everything else). No issues anymore:

So that was indeed as suggested by one of the posters on Reddit most likely coming from a "system level" issue indeed (and thanks to him for pointing me in the right direction as I really needed to finish that document).

Considering I also spotted quite a few glitches on my iPhone 18 Pro running 26.1, it would unfortunately seem that the legendary level of reliability of Apple OS is somewhat lower than what it used to be. :/

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,290 points

Dec 21, 2025 5:56 AM in response to Marian LC

I provided you a link to the answer for your original dialog by someone that absolutely knows the reason. It was not a Pages memory leak. That is a popular conspiracy theory on Reddit by those that don't know the first sentence reason, or choose to ignore it.

Sure. Updating the operating system completely eliminates the pending application memory requests that the link I provided explains; clears out old System Caches, and rebuilds other System Caches. But what happens if you never used Pages again and you get that same original dialog again? What will Reddit's answer be then?

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Answer 4

Marian LC Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2025 6:55 AM in response to VikingOSX

And I certainly thank you for trying to be helpful but the conversation you point to doesn’t help at all.

I perfectly understand how memory swap works when you’re out of ram (and also how and why it’s working better since we have SSDs)
I know how to identify apps that are crushing my cpu/memory/battery/etc
I know I’m not completely running out of disk space

What I don’t know is why a native macOS text editing app, with a single 240ko text file opened, would crash my Mac as it’s spinning out of control using 40GB of memory (as you can see in the screenshot), and keeps behaving as such, while any other apps don’t have (or generate) any sorts of issues. And I spend my life on this machine.

In the screen capture, you can see the system also pauses Spotify (and further after other apps after the capture) to try preventing a full system crash. But it all starts with Pages.

So unless I genuinely missed something in the 4 pages of the feed you shared (appart from « here is what’s memory swap » and « try to identify what’s eating your memory »), I’m not sure anything else would help fixing it. Are you sure you shared the right post?

Anyway, I don’t wan’t to give the impression I’m mad at you (even less so as you take time to try and help, and again, thanks for that), if anything I’m just really (sadly) impressed seeing now Apple is even able to loose it with its own native apps/system. :/

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Answer 5

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,290 points

Dec 21, 2025 11:33 AM in response to Marian LC

You probably are not in the position to quit using Pages and see if the out of memory condition returns in Pages absence. There are authors using Pages working with more than a GB document with text and images that have not reported out of memory issues.

I have never had an out of memory condition during my two decades of using macOS releases and I have been supporting Pages here for over 15 years. My usage style is that if I am not using an application, I close its open document(s) and formally quit the application. My Mac is shutdown before bedtime and powered on each morning — so System Caches are regularly purged.

We are approaching 9 months without a Pages update (almost a record), and consequently, it has not received the updates it should have received for the Tahoe release. That may be an unknown causal agent for the issues you have reported here, but I simply don't know, and the Pages product team is not present here for interaction.

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