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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-18T07:43:22+00:00

Does the following graph indicate that I am using memory and it is not

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Does the following graph indicate that I am using memory and it is not being garbage collected?

enter image description here

I expected the orange graph (the allocated heap) to go down once I start using less of the heap.

  • Is this an invalid assumption?
  • Once allocated, does the heap not
    shrink until the program closes?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It is clear from the graph that your JVM is capable of shrinking the heap. This can be seen from the orange line taking a slight dip just before 3:10pm.

    However, later on the JVM chooses to not shrink the heap. This is almost certainly because an insufficiently large fraction of the heap is unused. The behaviour is controlled by -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio and -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio.

    For a discussion, see http://stopcoding.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/more-on-the-incredible-shrinking-jvm-heap/

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