I don't claim expertise so am not disputing your recommendations. However, I do find it difficult to accept that 8gb or even 16gb of memory is adequate today.

I have a 2018 intel chip Mac Mini with 32gb RAM. Now that I'm retired I do little more than online purchasing, running a couple of web sites and writing on Medium and LinkedIn and a couple of other places. Beyond that it's only email and some spreadsheet, database and music download and play that I do.

I have CleanMyMac installed and run it daily to check for malware and clean up generally. All too often, admittedly only momentarily, it tells me that I am close to running out of memory.

As far as I can tell by running Mac utilities and other diagnostic software, there is nothing wrong with my Mac. It appears to do all it should and do it without problems.

So I just wonder, working with 8 or 16gb - is that really realistic or am I being fooled by something wrong that is not being picked up.

I'm on OS Monterey 12.6.2 My Mini came with Big Sur and I did go as far as upgrading to Ventura but that did cause all sorts of problems so I had to drop back - a real hassle. Could that have created a problem? I don't know. I'm sorry that I'm asking you because it's not your problem but you do seem to know a lot about what you write.

Others have also told me that 128gb or 256gb of storage is o.k. I find that ridiculous because if I run Apple Music and Apple Photos with the files on that amount of built in storage I'm running out of space in no time. For years I've had to use external storage and point Photos & Music there.

I just wonder at some of the advice ... no, not yours, as I said at the outset, I bow to your better knowledge. :-)