The mem command allows users to determine how much memory is used and how much is available.

Availability

The mem command is an external command that is available for the following Microsoft operating systems as mem.exe.

Windows Vista, 7, 8, or 10 users should use the Windows utility to determine how much RAM is installed and available. See: How to find how much RAM is installed on a computer.

  • Availability

  • Mem syntax

  • Mem examples

  • Mem issues

  • MS-DOS 4.0 and above

  • Windows 95

  • Windows 98

  • Windows ME

  • Windows NT

  • Windows 2000

  • Windows XP

Mem syntax

Displays the amount of used and free memory in your system.

MEM [/CLASSIFY | /DEBUG | /FREE | /MODULE module name] [/PAGE]

Mem examples

mem

This command would display information about your memory, as seen in the examples below.

Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98 example output:

Memory type Total Used Free————— —— —— —— Conventional 640 k 52 k 588 k Upper 0 k 0 k 0 k Reserved 384 k 384 k 0 k Extended (XMS) 31,768 k 168 k 31,576 k

Total memory 31,768 k 168 k 31,576 k Total under 1 MB 640 k 52 k 588 k Total Expanded (EMS) 32 M (33,046,528 bytes) Free Expanded (EMS) 16 M (16,777,216 bytes)Largest executable program size 588 K (602,512 bytes) Largest free upper memory block 0 K (0 bytes) MS-DOS is resident in the high memory area.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP example output:

655360 bytes total conventional memory655360 bytes available to MS-DOS633872 largest executable program size1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory0 bytes available contiguous extended memory941056 bytes available XMS memory MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

mem /f

Display the amount of conventional memory free.

Mem issues

When using the mem /c command from a DOS window in Windows, no upper blocks are seen, as shown in the above example. In Windows 0 bytes are shown because Windows reserves all global upper memory blocks for Windows.

MS-DOS 6.2 and above does not accept or recognize more than 64 MB of ram when typing mem.

  • Memory (RAM) help and support.
  • See our memory definition for further information and related links on this term.