Hi everyone,
I’m experiencing extreme memory usage in Cursor, leading to constant crashes. The main Cursor process + Cursor Helper (Renderer) combined are using over 7GB of RAM, which seems way too high for a code editor (see attached screenshot).
Issue Details:
Cursor’s memory usage keeps increasing over time until it reaches 7GB+ and crashes.
Even with no extensions installed and no large files open, RAM usage is extremely high.
I’ve tried restarting Cursor, but the issue persists.
When checking Activity Monitor, I see Cursor Helper (Renderer) is consuming more RAM than the main process.
What I’ve Tried:
Restarting Cursor Running Cursor without extensions (I have none installed) Checking for large open files (none are particularly large) Attempting to launch Cursor with --disable-gpu --disable-crash-reporter (but the cursor command isn’t recognized) Checking for updates (I’m on the latest version)
System Details:
MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021)
Chip: Apple M1 Pro
Memory: 16GB RAM
macOS Version: Sequoia 15.3.1
Cursor Version: 0.46.9 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.96.2
Electron Version: 32.2.6
Chromium Version: 128.0.6613.186
Node.js Version: 20.18.1
Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this a known issue, or is there a way to limit Cursor’s memory usage? Any help would be appreciated!
Hey, does this happen with other projects as well? It might be related to having too many conversations in your chat history. Try opening a new project. The issue might also be connected to having Shadow Workspace enabled, try disabling it. If none of the above solves the problem, try clearing the cache.
After extensive troubleshooting, I’ve found a simple but effective solution to the memory leak issues causing Cursor to crash after consuming excessive RAM (7GB+).
Root Cause
The problem appears to be related to corrupted configuration files, not the project itself. Simply clearing the cache (as some suggest) isn’t sufficient to resolve the issue in all cases.
Complete Fix
Here’s the step-by-step solution that worked for me:
Close Cursor completely
Ensure all Cursor processes are terminated
Delete Cursor’s entire configuration directory
Run this command in Terminal: rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Cursor/
This removes all configuration files, not just the cache
Restart Cursor
Launch Cursor from your Applications folder
Set up as new
Choose “Start from Scratch” when prompted
Don’t import VS Code extensions initially
You can add essential extensions later if needed
Monitor memory usage
Open your problematic project and observe memory usage
Additional Tips
If the problem returns:
Try disabling the “Codebase-wide” embedding feature (which computes embeddings for your codebase)
Check if Shadow Workspace is enabled and disable it (it’s known to increase memory usage)
Look for large files in your project that might trigger memory issues
This solution worked immediately after hours of unsuccessful troubleshooting with other methods. Hope it helps someone else!
I experienced the same high memory usage issue with Cursor, where the Cursor Helper (Renderer) exceeded 5GB, eventually leading to crashes every time I opened the workspace. After some troubleshooting, I resolved the problem by deleting the repository folder and then re-cloning it from Git.
For context, I’m using the following setup on the same model and macOS version:
Restarting Cursor