This article describes what you should do if you get a message that says you do not have enough memory to open a particular file with one of your applications.

You can set your application to request more memory from the Macintosh System software with the following procedure.

To Allocate More Memory To a Program

1. Quit the application if it is running.
2. Locate and click once on the application icon on your Macintosh hard drive (not the icon in the Launcher or an alias to the application).
3. Choose Get Info from the File menu.
4. Make sure the Kind is an application program and not folder, alias or document. If it does not say application program, the Memory Requirements area will not be visible.
5. For System 7.1 or greater, double click on the number next to the Preferred Size box in the Memory Requirements area.
6. Increase the amount of memory allocated to the application in the Preferred Size box to approximately 25% to 50% more. (Example: change 1000 K to 1500 K)
7. Close the Get Info window.

The next time you launch the application it asks the system to allocate to it the amount of memory in the preferred memory size box. If the system does not have the requested free RAM available, it tries to allocate a progressively decreasing amount of RAM until it decreases to the amount in the minimum requirements box in the Get Info window. If the amount of free RAM available falls below the minimum, the system reports there is not enough memory launch the application.

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