How to free up swap if there is free RAM?

Posted October 18, 2019
Linux Basics

Hi all,

Does anyone know an easy way on how to free up my swap? I can see that there’s enough RAM available:

# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            983         316          88           9         578         470
Swap:          1023         266         757

Thanks!

bitmap

AmeliaClarkson291 • October 19, 2019

This process may take a while, use gnome-system-monitor to monitor and verify the progress.

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Bobby Iliev • October 18, 2019

Accepted Answer

Hello,

I would usually use the following command:

swapoff -a && swapon -a &

The & sign at the end would start the process in the background, then I would run the following to watch how the data is being copied from the SWAP to RAM: