RAM stands for Random Access Memory. It’s a short term storage medium that holds programs and processes currently running on your computer.
The more RAM that’s in your machine, the more programs you can run at once without negatively affecting performance. When your computer runs low on RAM, it uses a part of the storage drive called the page file that acts as pretend RAM. This is much slower than actual RAM, which is why you notice slowdowns when Windows uses it.
Because RAM is volatile, you’ll lose its contents when your computer shuts off. Anything you want to keep must save to permanent storage, like a hard drive or solid-state drive.
Restart Your PC
This is a tip you’re probably familiar with, but it’s popular for a reason.
Restarting your PC will also completely clear the RAM and restart all running processes. While this obviously won’t increase the maximum RAM available, it will clean up processes running in the background that could be eating up your memory.
Uninstall or Disable Software
Now that you’ve seen what apps use the most RAM on your system, think about whether you really use them. An easy way to free up RAM is to keep programs you never use anyway from consuming it!
Use Lighter Apps and Manage Programs
Try ReadyBoost
If your computer still has an older mechanical hard disk drive (HDD) inside, you can try a lesser-known Windows feature called ReadyBoost to increase RAM. This allows you to plug in a flash drive or SD card that Windows effectively treats as extra RAM.
While it sounds great, this feature offers limited use today. If your computer has an SSD, ReadyBoost won’t do anything. This is because an SSD is faster than a flash drive.
Plus, since computers have more RAM installed by default now, you won’t see as much gain from ReadyBoost as you would on an anemic system from many years ago. The “pretend RAM” from ReadyBoost doesn’t offer the same performance gains as actually adding more RAM.