Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange
Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [ram]

For questions regarding operating memory (RAM) in an Android device. Please do not use this tag for questions concerning storage space and disk usage, use the "internal-storage" tag instead.

Memory is what the Android device uses to manage currently running applications.

Note: Not to be confused with .

Starters

Users new to Android (and not familiar with Linux either) often wonder why the RAM is always "full" -- or, put in other words, why there is so few "unused RAM". Before asking a question in this direction, you should get a little familiar with how RAM is used on Linux in general and Android in special: free RAM is wasted RAM1.

There are a few questions here on our site which can serve as good starters, as they have answers explaining this more detailed:

Please make sure to have understood at least the basics before you ask your question. Might even be, after reading the above your question is already answered.

263 questions
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How will a swap partition/file affect the system?

Some friends told me that their Android phones have very little (<100MB) available memory for regular apps, because the OS and some un-killable services take most of the RAM. For example, one phone with 512MB only shows 90MB available memory, so…
evergreen
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Can you upgrade the RAM of an Android device?

I'm sure many people like me are aware and annoyed by the extremely limited amount of RAM in Nexus S (512MB but only 300+ is usable), I have searched all over google for a solution to increase the amount of RAM available and came up empty (I tried…
tinytinysky
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1 answer

Why is my device not utilizing all of its available RAM?

I have a Nook Color with Cyanogenmod 7.2 (on mSD), and Nook Color is supposed to be 512MB of RAM (says so on product's page). When I open Menu (on bottom bar, while on desktop) > Manage Applications > Running, it says on the bottom left 95MB used,…
wajed
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Is there a way (with root?) to prevent Android task killer from killing certain apps?

I'd like a browser app (FireFox) not to be killed every now and then by the system's task killer since I'd like to use certain single page applications that hold some data and are not loaded very quickly. Is there any way to deal with this, even if…
YakovL
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8
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5 answers

How can I determine how much total RAM my device actually has?

I bought a SIM locked ZTE v790 in Egypt. It tells me that it has 181MB of RAM, but it supposed to be 512MB. Is there a way to check how much RAM my device physically has before deciding to get it replaced?
Mohamed Magdy
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3 answers

How can I edit values in memory?

Is it possible to edit values in memory used by an app? I would assume this requires root.
gontadu
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6
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2 answers

Why does it seem like I have less RAM than advertised?

Why is that on my Galaxy Note 3 (3gb RAM) I only have .91 GB free, 1.5 GB used while doing nothing, meaning only 2.41 GB total. Is that because the rest (~.6 GB) of my memory is used for the OS? And the reason I only have .91 GB free when doing…
Nitan Shalon
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6
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1 answer

Keeping an app in memory

I once read about an init.d tweak to keep an app in memory. I'm unable to find that tweak now. Does anyone have the link? An alternate method would also be welcome. Edit : I'm using cyanogenmod 10.
Binoy Babu
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4
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3 answers

Does Android hide some amount of RAM from the User?

I bought a new tablet, but Android (2.3.1) shows that it has only 150MB free of 256MB, and it should have 512MB. I checked the file /proc/meminfo, MemTotal information. It only shows 256MB. Is there a possibility that the Android "hid" 256MB of RAM…
hmmmmm
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android virtual memory support

I want to know if android supports virtual memory concept.I know windows supports virtual memory but what about android? Do our android phones store less used data out of RAM?
user1917769
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Is there a way to perform a memdump of an android device?

Is there a way to perform a memdump of an android device? I need the content of the entire memory (RAM). Maybe there is a shell command (meminfo will not do because it displays only memory information, not the content of RAM) or maybe somebody has a…
Marius
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Virtual addresses managed by Android

I have the following questions: How Android map virtual addresses to physical addresses? Does Android use virtual memory like desktop OS? What is the replacement algorithm used by Android? These questions are quite simple to Desktop OS's and there…
CFLS
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Expand RAM on Micromax Canvas A76- Android 4.2.2

I want to use my SDcard to expand my RAM. I am falling short of RAM memory and due to which I need at least 500 MB more RAM space. For this, I have a class10 8 GB microSD card. Can anyone suggest how do I expand my RAM on my device. If any efficient…
Abhinav Vatsa
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1 answer

Is there a way to create virtual memory?

I'm curious if there's a way to create virtual memory for an Android phone. I have a 4gb mirco sd card in my phone. Any ideas?
James Litewski
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1GB/8GB advertised versus 967.5 MB / 5564.6 MB actual .HELP

just recieved new android phone which should be 1GB ROM AND 8GB RAM. ANTUTU tells me the following memory 840.2/1008.3 MB RAM 175.7/967.5 MB Internal SD card 5558.3/5564.6 MB I'm new to Android and smartphones and…
user3407186
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