Why is Skype memory usage so high?

According to TaskManager on W7, Skype is using 72Mb of memory. I'm not in a call or anything - it's just logged in.

Is this anything to care about?

Mr. Boy

Posted 2014-03-18T09:44:39.550

Reputation: 3 710

@Ramhound There's nothing 'normal' about 72MB of RAM. It's a lot. The MySQL and OpenLDAP servers run in half that, and believe me they do a lot more than Skype. – user207421 – 2015-10-15T01:29:00.740

@EJP - I disagree. You can't compare MySQL and OpenLDAP servers to Skype, they do entirely different things, what a useless comparison. – Ramhound – 2015-10-15T10:59:11.753

272MB of memory isn't high usage. This sort of usage for Skype is perfectly normal. – Ramhound – 2014-03-18T10:52:40.247

Are you talking about physical memory? Commit size? Virtual memory? What exactly did you measure? – David Schwartz – 2014-03-19T04:17:50.127

9I have the same question, but mine is soaring above 550mb (private working set), with 1.1gb commit size. Don't really want to make a new question, however the current best answer is useless to me. – AnnanFay – 2014-05-01T19:53:37.527

Answers

I've found two things to have helped lower the unreasonable, and inefficient memory usage of Skype:

Turn off emoticon animations (or emoticons altogether)
- Options > IM > Turn off emoticon animations
Display only contact names without pictures
- Options > Contacts List > Contact name only

My Skype–running on a corporate computer for company use–consistently uses >500MB of physical memory, this being the base value with no message threads actually open. When I have several threads open, with a long history in each, it can increase by 200MB easily.

Most of this memory usage seems to be due to the long (corporate) contact lists and Skype buffering of the conversation history, profile images, and active threads, but that's just a guess.

morrcahn

Posted 2014-03-18T09:44:39.550

Reputation: 81

No, it isn't. This is a perfectly normal value. Unless a program is not meticulously optimized for memory usage, that is.

Daniel B

Posted 2014-03-18T09:44:39.550

Reputation: 40 502

This answer is not only useless but also does not cite any resources to make it reliable. I've got 160 MB ram usage, which is 10 times more than explorer.exe - the most important process regarding windows GUI. I'm very curious what data is Skype storing on 160MB of memory - enough to fit a movie clip in it. – Tomáš Zato - Reinstate Monica – 2015-01-08T21:10:27.830

1Yes it is something to care about. My Skype is presently using 205MB, which is nearly as much memory than Firefox which has a dozen tabs over and is rendering hundreds of windows controls and fonts. It is second top of the list and 95% of the time it is doing nothing except showing a single window and some text and a couple of images. This answer is absurd. – user207421 – 2015-10-15T01:24:38.433

@EJP So it’s using three times as much. Maybe you have a lot of contacts or whatever. If you can’t deal with the fact that using a fat GUI framework results in a lot of memory usage, perhaps you shouldn’t be using Skype. – Daniel B – 2015-10-15T07:53:49.733

4As a software developer, that's not true. Even though it's not a lot in relative terms, it is a lot for a program that's not doing anything. When I look in Task Manager, Skype is the 4th biggest in memory usage - using 3X more than DropBox or explorer.exe. – Mr. Boy – 2014-03-18T13:50:43.670

1It's not universally true. Still, when using a not-so-light GUI framework, these values are nothing out of the ordinary. I have Chrome running at several hundreds of megabytes, Firefox at roughly 600 MB – even Explorer is using 140 MB. Skype is in no way comparable to Dropbox. – Daniel B – 2014-03-18T14:50:46.250

1This isn't a very useful answer for people who arrive here from search engines (see my comment to main question). If this is the correct answer the question sounds too localised. When the question is broadened this answer becomes useless. – AnnanFay – 2014-05-01T19:58:49.227

@Annan Well, your problem is obviously not the problem this question is about, then. – Daniel B – 2014-05-01T23:54:48.753

Skype will be creating resources for every profile in your contact list (photos especially can eat up ram), your own profile and any history about that it keeps, creating buffers for handling connections, buffers for histories of conversations, etc.

The exe is 20 meg alone, and generally a lot of memory systems in there will need to allocate some basic workspace once they initialise, even if that subsystem isn't getting used.

Looking at it, I'd say its using more than it needs but not enough that they wanted to waste time optimising for memory usage.

EDIT - Also, if its creating a lot of windows and user interfaces that are just hidden, that can escalate the memory usage dramatically. Skype has a LOT of functionality your probably not accessing.

James Podesta

Posted 2014-03-18T09:44:39.550

Reputation: 111

1Any chance I could disable the unused functionality? This answer sounds right, but if it provided some hints regarding solution, it would even be useful. – Tomáš Zato - Reinstate Monica – 2015-01-08T21:11:47.677

Oh diddums. So does Firefox or IE and they do aeons more than Skype. – user207421 – 2015-10-15T01:29:29.227

Sorry, I don't know of anything you can do to reduce the memory usage in Skype.. memory usage is generally not a priority on desktop applications (or even mobile these days) due to the accessibility of ram. Compared to how much your browser will eat up with a couple of open pages, Skype should be the least of your problems... – James Podesta – 2016-01-26T08:17:33.170

The problem is that Skype is using P2P connection typology, hence the application needs to use some users as relay nodes or super nodes to host the connections between other users. This issue happens when your computer is so powerful that the program chooses you to host the connections.

To solve this issue, all what you have to do is delete the routing table file to renew it. You can do that in Windows, as follows:

Quit Skype entirely. You can do that by right clicking the Skype icon in the system tray next to the clock (bottom right of your screen), then select Quit.
Press on your keyboard Windows button plus R.
Type in the run box C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Skype
Delete the file shared or shared.xml, not shared.lck
Start Skype again.

In a Mac, you can delete the same file as follows:

Quit Skype. Right click Skype in the Dock, then choose Quit.
Go to home > Library > Application support > Skype.
Delete the shared.xml file.

JobPencil

Posted 2014-03-18T09:44:39.550

Reputation: 31

1It appears this answer is a bit spammy – Jonathan – 2014-03-18T11:51:39.327

Can you provide any sources that confirm your relay nodes theory? I don't see any reason to use relay nodes in a P2P communicator. Avoiding intermediate nodes is the entire point of P2P. AFAIK Skype supernodes exist, but they are dedicated servers run by Skype/MS, not computers of users. – gronostaj – 2014-03-18T12:14:41.927

5What is spammy about it? – Mr. Boy – 2014-03-18T13:51:31.983

@gronostaj If both ends of a P2P connection are behind a firewall, then an intermediate node is required. I agree in thinking that MS shut all the 3rd party supernodes down a while ago, though. – Darth Android – 2014-03-18T14:12:29.527