Getting started

To use the Memory Profiler, open its window (menu: Window > Analysis > Memory Profiler)

The Memory Profiler window has three main areas:

Memory Profiler window breakdown
The Memory Profiler window

A The Workbench, which contains all the memory snapshots in your Project, and allows you to compare snapshots.
B The Main view, which displays the in-depth memory data of your snapshot.

At the top of the window there are the following controls:

Control Function
Attach to Player Select which target to take a memory snapshot of. You can select Play Mode in the Editor, any Player you have running, or the Editor itself. You can also click Enter IP in the drop-down to manually enter the IP address of the device you want to profile your application on. For more information, see the User Manual documentation on Profiling your application.
Capture Select this button to take a memory snapshot. This operation might take a few seconds, depending on the size of your application. Once the Memory Profiler has captured the snapshot, it appears in the Workbench.
Import Import a saved capture file. For more information, see Import a snapshot in this documentation.
View When you open a memory snapshot, use this drop-down menu to select how you would like to view the data. You can either choose Tree Map, Memory Map, or Table view. For more information on these views, see the documentation on The Main View.
View history Use the arrow buttons to switch between views you previously opened.
Load view Load a saved view.

Capture a memory snapshot

To capture a snapshot, you can either chose to profile the Editor, Play Mode, or a player running on your local machine or connected device.

When you enter Play Mode, or have a Player running on your computer or connected device, they appear in the Attach to Player dropdown at the top of the window.

Choose one of the options from the dropdown menu, and then select the Capture button. This operation might take a few moments to capture. Note: The Capture button is labelled Capture Editor when the Memory Profiler targets the Unity Editor (not in Play Mode). When you select Play Mode, or a running player, the button is labelled Capture Player.

Once you have captured a snapshot, it appears in the Workbench.

When you capture a snapshot of the Editor in Play Mode, it also includes any memory the Editor uses. The memory usage in Play Mode is not representative of the memory usage on a device. You should always capture snapshots from a built Player on the targeted platform for the most accurate memory profiling.

You can also trigger a memory snapshot at any moment you decide, without any interaction with the Memory Profiler window. Use the Memory Profiler Scripting API to set up capture logic in a script inside your Player. For information about the custom MetaData collection, see Add Player hook.

Snapshot location

When you create a snapshot for the first time, the Editor creates a sub-folder under your Project folder called MemoryCaptures. This folder is where the Memory Profiler stores all of your snapshots.

By default, the Memory Profiler stores all snapshots in <Path/of/Your/ProjectFolder>/MemoryCaptures. To change the default path go to Preferences > Analysis > Profiling > MemoryProfiler.

Memory Profiler Preferences
Memory Profiler Preferences

Note: The path must be relative, i.e., it must start with “./” or “../” to denote its location within, or one folder hierarchy above, the Project folder respectively.

Import a snapshot

To import a snapshot, you can do this via the Project folder, or via Workbench.

To import via the Project folder, perform the following steps:

  1. Inside your Project folder, find the folder named MemoryCaptures, or create it if it does not exist.
  2. Copy the snapshot files to this folder.
  3. Open the Memory Profiler window, and you can see the added snapshot in the Workbench panel.

To import via Workbench:

  1. In the Memory Profiler, select the Import button. This action opens a file dialog.
  2. Locate and open the memory snapshot you want to import. If you choose to import a .snap file, Unity copies the file to your MemoryCaptures folder.