Help
Memory tiers
Why what Moonbox can make depends on your Mac's memory, and which tier your Mac is in.
Why memory matters
Moonbox’s tools run on your Mac, not on a server. While a tool works, it has to fit in your Mac’s memory alongside macOS and your other apps. Bigger tools, like video, need more memory to run well. So Moonbox offers each Mac the tools it can run comfortably.
The three tiers
Moonbox reads your Mac’s memory and rounds down to the nearest tier. A Mac with 18 GB gets the 16 GB set; a Mac with 36 GB gets everything.
8 GB: Macs with 8 or 12 GB
Voice and audio work, photo clean-up and the assistant:
- Text to speech, with a lighter voice that reads a sentence at a time, so long scripts take a little longer.
- Speech to text with speaker labels and subtitles, also in a lighter version.
- Voice changer, voice isolator and stem splitter.
- Photo clean-up: remove something from a photo or repair a damaged area.
- The assistant, for chat and for using the tools above. On these Macs it does one thing at a time: a job waits until the one before it has finished.
No pictures from a description, songs, sound effects, 3D, talking portraits or video: they need 16 GB.
16 GB: Macs with 16, 18 or 20 GB
Everything an 8 GB Mac makes, with the full-size voice and transcription tools, plus:
- Pictures from a description, or a new version of a picture you have.
- Songs with vocals, and sound effects.
- 3D models from a description or a picture, at standard detail.
- Talking portraits.
- Video with sound in the Draft and Small sizes.
Video effects, the larger video sizes and the most detailed 3D models need 24 GB.
24 GB: Macs with 24 GB or more
Everything Moonbox makes:
- Video in every size, up to HD, and video effects (relight, restore, colourise, reframe, animate a still).
- 3D models at the highest detail.
- A more capable assistant, better at long requests and at building websites, documents and apps.
Tools above your tier
Tools that need more memory than your Mac has appear in Moonbox with a note such as “Needs a Mac with 16 GB of memory or more.” They can’t be downloaded on that Mac, because they would run very slowly or not at all.
Find your Mac’s memory
Open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. The number next to Memory is what Moonbox uses. On Macs with Apple silicon, memory is built into the chip and can’t be upgraded later.
Getting the most out of your Mac
- Quit apps you aren’t using before a big job such as a video.
- On a 16 GB Mac, smaller video sizes finish faster and leave room for other apps.
- On an 8 GB Mac, the assistant runs one task at a time; it waits for a job to finish before the next.
See the full table on Mac requirements.