[BUG] Claude Desktop memory leak — daily "Heavy memory usage" warnings, ~4.5–5 GB RSS on macOS 26.5.2

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?

Title: [BUG] Claude Desktop memory leak — daily "Heavy memory usage" warnings, ~4.5–5 GB RSS on macOS 26.5.2

Platform: macOS 26.5.2 (Apple Silicon)
Claude Desktop version: 1.22209.3 (babe11)

What's wrong?
Claude Desktop's memory usage climbs over the course of ~24 hours of
normal use until macOS raises its system "Heavy memory usage / running
out of memory" warning, naming Claude as a top consumer. This happens
every day. Observed footprint at warning time: 4.54–5.15 GB across two
separate days.

Symptoms:

• macOS memory-pressure warning triggered daily, listing Claude at

4.5–5+ GB.

• System-wide UI lag / sluggishness that began after updating to

macOS 26.5.2.

• Quitting and relaunching Claude resets memory and resolves the lag.

Workaround: Quit and relaunch Claude; memory is reclaimed
immediately, no reboot needed.

What Should Happen?

A chat client should maintain a bounded memory footprint and not
trigger system-level memory pressure during ordinary daily use.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Launch Claude Desktop on macOS 26.5.2.
2. Use normally through the day (leave running).
3. Within ~24 hours, macOS raises the heavy-memory-usage warning with

Claude at 4.5–5+ GB.

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

1.22209.3 (babe11)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_