USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND Same if you want to retrieve memory usage for one process, using ' ps aux' gives, in the RSS column, the reserved memory for each process : ps aux If you take only 'real used' memory, excluding buffers and caches, then we see that we use only 2160 Mb (second line, second column). We can see that we are using 3516 Mb over the 5963 Mb availables. The following example will output the highest memory process in batch mode.It is quite easy to retrieve total memory usage on a Linux or Unix server, with free command. We can use top batch mode to capture the process info.

press the up or down arrow until the %MEM choice is highlighted.

press Shift+f to enter the interactive menu.

Sort By memory Usage per-process in the top command interactive menu Tip: A leading ‘+’ will force sorting high to low, whereas a ‘-” will ensure a low to high ordering. This will sort the process by memory usage. This will display the information about the current running processes on your system. The best way to sort the top command by memory usage is by pressing shift+m after running the top command.

sort mem usage per process in the interactive menu.

press shift+m after running the top command.

3 Ways to Sort Top Command by memory usage The top command is a useful tool for understanding what processes are running on your system and how they’re using resources. It can also be used to see the PID, username, and command line for each process. The top command can be used to see the CPU usage, memory usage, and swap usage for each process. The top command in Linux is used to display information about the current running processes on your system. Below we collect 3 ways to sort processes by memory. The default sorting key is %CPU on Linux.

Top is a very powerful command to periodically display a sorted list of system processes.

Linux show memory usage by process