Why Claude Desktop Consumes 1.8 GB RAM on Launch – Insights from a 105‑Day GitHub Issue

Launching Claude Desktop spawns a Hyper‑V virtual machine (process Vmmem) that occupies roughly 1.8 GB of RAM even when only chat functionality is used.

The behavior is tracked in GitHub issue #29045 of the anthropics/claude-code repository, opened on February 26 and reproduced on Windows 11 Pro (Razer Blade 15, 16 GB RAM) and on macOS (Apple silicon models M1, M4 Pro, Air).

Observed resource usage

Windows : Vmmem uses 1,796–1,846 MB; launch chain is services.exe → vmcompute → vmwp.exe → Vmmem.

macOS : Apple Virtual Machine Service uses 1.89–3 GB.

Disk impact : macOS vm_bundles directory consumes ~6 GB; Windows rootfs.vhdx consumes ~2 GB.

Cowork session leftovers : %APPDATA%\Claude\local-agent-mode-sessions\ contains 2,689 stale session files; deleting them prevents the VM from restarting on the next launch.

Extreme case : version 1.1.9310.0 reported 25 GB RAM usage with more than ten claude.exe processes.

Hyper‑V event log : each launch logs Invalid JSON document '$' (0xC037010D) since February 19.

Root cause

Claude Desktop couples the Cowork UI with a “secure sandbox” that runs in a VM. Early versions started the VM only after a user‑initiated action, but long initialization time led the team to switch to a pre‑launch strategy that assumes every user will use Cowork. Most users never use Cowork, resulting in an approximate 11 % memory overhead.

Workarounds (ordered by intrusiveness)

Config file toggle (least intrusive) : edit the application config file to set

{
  "preferences": {
    "secureVmFeaturesEnabled": false
  }
}

and restart the app. This disables the automatic VM start without modifying registry or system features.

macOS trigger switch : quit the app with Cmd+Q, which fully reclaims memory; the VM restarts on the next launch.

Windows service disable : run

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CoworkVMService" `
  -Name "Start" -Value 4

to change CoworkVMService from automatic to disabled.

Disable VirtualMachinePlatform (high impact) : run

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "VirtualMachinePlatform" -NoRestart

. This also disables WSL, Docker Desktop, and Windows Sandbox.

Manual kill : after launching the app, execute

Stop-Process -Name vmwp -Force
Stop-Process -Name vmcompute -Force

to stop the VM until the next launch.

Broader implication

The issue illustrates a pattern where AI desktop applications embed full agent sandboxes, effectively turning a simple chat client into a “micro cloud host” without explicit user consent. Unlike GitHub Copilot or Cursor, which operate within IDEs that define clear boundaries, Claude Desktop pre‑launches a VM that consumes significant resources even when idle.