---
name: "vm_stat"
section: "1"
platform: "macos"
package: "system_cmds"
version: "1042.120.1"
release: "macOS 26.5"
platforms: ["macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/vm_stat"
---

# vm\_stat(1)

show Mach virtual memory statistics

## NAME

**vm\_stat** – show Mach virtual memory statistics

## SYNOPSIS

**vm\_stat**\[ \[**-c** *count*\] *interval*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**vm\_stat** displays Mach virtual memory statistics. If the optional *interval* is specified, then **vm\_stat** will display the statistics every *interval* seconds. In this case, each line of output displays the change in each statistic (an *interval* count of 1 displays the values per second).  However, the first line of output following each banner displays the system-wide totals for each statistic. If a *count* is provided, the command will terminate after *count* intervals. The following values are displayed:

- Pages free

  the total number of free pages in the system.

- Pages active

  the total number of pages currently in use and pageable.

- Pages inactive

  the total number of pages on the inactive list.

- Pages speculative

  the total number of pages on the speculative list.

- Pages throttled

  the total number of pages on the throttled list (not wired but not pageable).

- Pages wired down

  the total number of pages wired down. That is, pages that cannot be paged out.

- Pages purgeable

  the total number of purgeable pages.

- Translation faults

  the number of times the "vm\_fault" routine has been called.

- Pages copy-on-write

  the number of faults that caused a page to be copied (generally caused by copy-on-write faults).

- Pages zero filled

  the total number of pages that have been zero-filled on demand.

- Pages reactivated

  the total number of pages that have been moved from the inactive list to the active list (reactivated).

- Pages purged

  the total number of pages that have been purged.

- File-backed pages

  the total number of pages that are file-backed (non-swap)

- Anonymous pages

  the total number of pages that are anonymous

- Uncompressed pages

  the total number of pages (uncompressed) held within the compressor

- Pages used by VM compressor:

  the number of pages used to store compressed VM pages.

- Pages decompressed

  the total number of pages that have been decompressed by the VM compressor.

- Pages compressed

  the total number of pages that have been compressed by the VM compressor.

- Pageins

  the total number of requests for pages from a pager (such as the inode pager).

- Pageouts

  the total number of pages that have been paged out.

- Swapins

  the total number of compressed pages that have been swapped back in from disk.

- Swapouts

  the total number of compressed pages that have been swapped out to disk.

If the system supports the ARM Memory Tagging Extension (MTE), then the following values will additionally be displayed:

- Pages tagged

  the total number of virtual pages which have been assigned memory tags.

- Pages tagged resident

  the number of tagged pages which are resident in memory.

- Pages tagged compressed

  the number of tagged pages which have been evicted to the compressor.

- Pages tag storage

  the total number of physical pages which may be used to store memory tags.

- Pages tag storage holding tags

  the number of physical pages which are currently being used to store memory tags.

- Pages tag storage free

  the number of tag-storage pages which are unused.

- Pages tag storage non-tag pageable

  the number of tag-storage pages which are being used to store pageable non-tag data.

- Pages tag storage non-tag wired

  the number of tag-storage pages which are being used to store wired non-tag data.

- Bytes of compressed tags

  the (post-compression) size of memory tags currently held in the compressor in bytes.

- Tagged compressions

  the number of tagged pages which have been compressed.

- Tagged decompressions

  the number of tagged pages which have been decompressed.

If *interval* is not specified, then **vm\_stat** displays all accumulated statistics along with the page size.