[BUG] Critical macOS 26.2 Memory Leak — Claude Desktop Background Processes

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Claude Desktop on macOS 26.2 (Tahoe) exhibits a severe memory leak in background processes that rapidly consumes tens of gigabytes of RAM, triggers aggressive memory compression and swap thrashing, and destabilizes the entire system.

This occurs even when Claude is idle, with no active conversations and no workspace or project open in VS Code. The issue is reproducible and resolves immediately upon force-terminating all Claude background processes.

What Should Happen?

When idle, Claude Desktop should maintain a small, bounded memory footprint and should not cause system-wide memory pressure, excessive compression, or swap activity. Closing VS Code or leaving Claude idle should release unused memory rather than continuously increasing usage.

Error Messages/Logs

No explicit error messages are shown in the UI.
The failure mode manifests as runaway memory usage rather than a logged exception.

Relevant system metrics (collected via memory_pressure) are included below under Additional Information.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Boot macOS 26.2 (Tahoe)
2. Launch Claude Desktop
3. Launch VS Code
4. Do not open a project or workspace
5. Do not interact with Claude
6. Wait a little while (for me, less than 10 seconds)
7. Observe memory usage in Activity Monitor

Result: Multiple claude processes appear, each consuming ~9–10 GB of memory, eventually triggering aggressive memory compression and swap thrashing.

Recovery: Force-quit all claude processes → memory is immediately reclaimed with no reboot.

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

Unknown exact version, but this behavior did not occur prior to macOS 26.x. The issue appears to be triggered or amplified by changes in macOS 26 memory pressure / background process handling.

Claude Code Version

Latest available Claude Desktop version as of macOS 26.2 (Tahoe). (The issue occurs even without running claude CLI commands.)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

VS Code integrated terminal

Additional Information

This issue is not caused by VS Code or extensions. Evidence:

VS Code memory usage remains ~100 MB

Code Helper (Plugin) remains < 1 GB

Memory pressure resolves only when Claude processes are terminated

memory_pressure before force-killing Claude:
Pages free: 6,271
Pages used by compressor: 779,553
Pages compressed: 4,271,763
Swapouts: 1,645,256
System-wide memory free percentage: 39%

memory_pressure immediately after force-killing Claude:
Pages free: 773,939
Pages used by compressor: 51,938
System-wide memory free percentage: 87%

No reboot. No other processes terminated.

This appears to be a background daemon / helper process leak retaining large heaps indefinitely. Browser-based Claude does not exhibit this behavior.

<img width="1072" height="752" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/38c0a584-259f-4019-a379-0c3a1fe1ac54" />