Upgrading the RAM in a Mac Mini is a relatively straightforward process that can be done with a few simple steps. The first step is to access the interior of the Mac Mini, which requires removing the lower panel. To do this, you will need to use a Pentalobe screwdriver to remove the screws that hold the panel in place. Once the screws are removed, carefully pull the panel away from the rest of the computer and set it aside.

Once the panel is removed, you will see the logic board and other components exposed. This is where the RAM upgrade takes place. You will need to identify the two slots where the RAM modules will be installed. These slots are typically labeled as "DIMM 1" and "DIMM 2". The first step is to remove any clips that may be holding the existing RAM modules in place. To do this, you will gently push on the clips and allow them to come back into place.

Once the clips have been removed, you can proceed with installing the new RAM modules. These modules are typically 32GB of DDR4 memory, which is a significant upgrade from the standard 8GB that most Mac Minis come with. To install the first module, simply push it into the slot and allow it to click into place. The second module will be installed in a similar manner.

After both RAM modules have been installed, you will need to secure them in place using the clips again. Make sure they are firmly seated and securely attached before moving on to the next step. Once both RAM modules are securely in place, you can proceed with reassembling the Mac Mini.

The next step is to reattach the fan and power supply cables. To do this, you will need to identify the connectors for these components and align them properly before securing them back into place using screws. The fan connector should be aligned with a small socket on the logic board, while the power supply cable should be secured using screws.

With the fan and power supply cables reattached, you can proceed with securing the logic board back into its slot. This requires aligning it properly and then applying gentle pressure to snap it back into place. Make sure that all connections are secure before moving on to the next step.

The final steps involve securing the logic board in place using screws and replacing any panels or covers that were removed earlier. To do this, you will need to use a Torx screwdriver to tighten the screws securely, but make sure not to overtighten them. Once all panels are back in place, you can plug in the power cord and turn on the Mac Mini.

After turning on the Mac Mini, it should boot up normally without any issues related to the RAM upgrade. The memory usage will be reflected in System Profiler, showing that there are 32GB of RAM installed, with 16GB in each of the two small outlined slots. If everything has been done correctly, this upgrade should work seamlessly and improve overall system performance.

Overall, upgrading the RAM in a Mac Mini is a relatively simple process that can be completed with basic tools and minimal technical expertise. However, if you are not comfortable performing such upgrades yourself, it's recommended to bring your Mac Mini to an Apple Store for professional assistance.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin this video we show you how to easily upgrade the RAM in the 2018 Mac Mini why would you want to go through the trouble well it's as simple as this you save lots of dough for instance to configure 32 gigabytes of RAM on the Mac Mini using apples built to order tools it costs $600 you can buy 32 gigabytes of RAM for well less than half that now it does take some work but if you want to save money it's definitely worth it check out the full video right now thanks for watching nine-to-five Mac be sure to thumbs up click the subscribe button and then enable notifications with the bill icon so you won't miss any upcoming videos before we get started I want to talk about some of the tools you're gonna need I'm using I fixit's Pro tech tool kit which includes above and beyond the things you need for the Mac Mini Ram install but it does have a whole bunch of handy things like an anti-static strap you have these plastic openers there's all sorts of other tools in here that will be handy for future things that you may be doing and of course there's the driver handle and tons of different drivers to choose from we're just going to be using a few different drivers for this particular installation so the point is you don't need to invest in this full kit however I think is a good investment just overall if you like to tinker with stuff we'll have links to the full toolkit and the individual drivers that you can use if you don't want to buy the full toolkit ok so make sure you have a soft surface to flip your Mac Mini around like this make sure the ports are facing you and you can read the Mac Mini logo now you want to just take an opener or a credit card and simply pry open the plastic back cover that's super easy to remove the little black antenna should be closest to you and it was time to remove these six security screws you want to start with these three first because they are a different length than the other three so we want to use ETR 6 Torx driver and just remove these three screws and make sure you place them in an area where you can keep them separate from everything else you know which screws go where that's super important all right it's gonna remove this one and we're gonna remove this third one here all right so now we're gonna remove these three screws so same thing use your tr6 driver and we'll remove those three and make sure you place those separate from where you place the other three because they're different in length okay so now we want to lift up on the right side of the antenna plate like this because the left side is actually connected to the logic board so just use some patience and be gentle as you lift up the right side so you slide your finger under there to get some leverage and as you're lifting you want to try to slide the left side of the antenna plate down into the crevice of the Mac Mini so that you can put it as close to a 90 degree angle as possible without putting stress on the antenna cable now there is a t6 Torx screw that you'll need to remove you can use that same tr6 Torx driver that we use to remove the antenna plate so you can just gently unscrew that and remember there's still that cable attached via a socket onto the logic board so don't lift up just yet when you remove that screw set that screw aside make sure you know where it is all right so now you just use a spudger to lift up only antenna cable remove it from that socket we'll take a little bit of pressure but you want to be as gentle as possible when you lift that up alright so now it's detached and this is what it looks like that is the cable that attaches to the logic board you can see that's a very very tiny little cable there alright so now the antenna plate is completely removed you can set that aside we'll be reinstalling that later all right so now you want to remove the fan there are two screws attached to the logic board and two screws attached to the exhaust so you can use that very same tr6 driver and first we'll remove the two screws from the logic board alright that first one make sure you set it in a place where you can easily find it and now we're gonna remove the two screws from the exhaust now these screws may not pull completely out and that's okay as long as they detach from the exhaust panel that's all you need you can just leave them actually in there if you want to and we'll do the second one again our goal here is just to detach it from the exhaust panel so that you can lift up on the fan alright so we want to gently pull up and move it backwards like this so that we can access the fan connector which connects to the logic board so you don't want to actually try to remove that yet until you remove that fan connector in the tool you're gonna use to remove that or your trusty fingers so you can just grab onto the cable and gently pull up here's a close-up shot of that fan connector and then you just want to grab it as close to the connector on the logic board as you can and pull up gently and that should detach it from the logic board just pull up there we go and the fan is completely detached so that's what the logic board looks like without the fan connector there and here's the fan and there's the connector on the end alright the next step is to remove the power supply cable from the logic board so again the tool of choice are your fingers you simply lift up shimmy it out a little bit and it will disconnect all right so now one last thing to disconnect in in my opinion the most difficult thing removing the LED indicator cable from the logic board iFixit recommends taking a pair of tweezers and pulling up on the connector to remove from the socket I couldn't do that so I just removed the leads from the connector probably not the best way to do this but it did work for me I'm not as good as I fix it by any stretch of the imagination so if you can do it their way more power to you now grab your t10 Torx driver to unscrew the two screws securing the logic board to the case of the Mac this will take a little bit of muscle so we'll unscrew that first one just like that in then we'll unscrew the second one this is pretty tight screws there but once you break that initial turn it's easy to remove all right so there we go make sure you set those aside where you can find them now you want to turn your Mac Mini around like this so that the ports are facing away from you like that because we're gonna push only exhaust you want to avoid pressing on the fins but push on the two little ears of the exhaust where the screw holes are and that will pop out the logic board from the Mac Mini enclosure you can just keep pressing like that and then just pull out the logic board like this super simple super easy right now for a brief sponsor incidents are going to happen but it all comes down to how your company responds that's where I've Jeannie comes in it gives you the tools that you need in a single package for handling alerts escalation paths on call scheduling progress notes and more it features deep integration with a lot of other services that businesses rely on you can quickly see who's on call notifications existing incidents and everything else you'd expect from an end-to-end platform in one place visit ops Jeannie comm sign up and get a free company account and add up to five team members never miss a critical alert with that last option Jeannie back to our program already in progress so what the logic board removes completely that means that we're in the homestretch of this memory install for the Mac Mini but look at that logic board isn't it cute it's just super small everything's just very very compact such a beautiful design you can see how everything is just built right into this little bitty tiny enclosure and it's super impressive and you have the power supply in there as well so now we want to access the little RAM cage here and you can use a t5 Torx driver to remove that cage from the RAM so we're just going to unscrew those four screws and then you simply lift that cage off like that you may see two little rubber pieces that fit over the RAM you can just remove those like this and now you want to pull the two clips away from the RAM and that will pop it out just like that there's one module out and on this base memory configuration these are two four gigabyte sticks of ddr4 Ram for a total of eight gigabytes of RAM so we're replacing those two four gigabytes sticks with two 16 gigabyte sticks of crucial ddr4 26 66 megahertz memory of course a two hundred and sixty pin small outlined dim module just like the one we're replacing so before you insert the module make sure that little notch is lined up correctly just slide the module in and once it's inserted you want to gently push back while you're holding those clips out like that and then allow the clips to come back into contact with the memory and then you want to do the same thing for the other module you gently push and allow those clips to come back into place just like that so there we go folks we have 32 gigabytes of ddr4 ram in this Mac Mini an upgrade that normally costs $600 if you do so at the time you're configuring your Mac Mini with Apple so you want to put those little rubber Clips back in they just kind of slide back into place just make sure they're in there correctly and then you can put the cage back on so that's what we're gonna do now just slide that cage back over the RAM all right so now we can secure it again with those t5 Torx screws so we'll use our t5 driver to get that done secure all four screws and once you're done you simply slide the logic board back into place inside the Mac Mini enclosure make sure you lift up on the LED indicator cable and the power cable so you don't pinch those behind the logic board and just pop it back into place it'll just pop back in apply a little pressure and it'll snap back into place just like that all right so now it's time to do everything in Reverse so we're going to secure the logic board to the Mac Mini enclosure so we use those two t10 Torx screws and we use the t10 Driver make sure it is tight just don't go nuts and now you want to reattach the LED indicator lights cable hopefully you can just snap it back into the socket but as I told you earlier in my case I'm just gonna use the tweezers to put the leads back into the connector like that all right so now we want to reattach the power supply cable you shimmy that back in there all right so we're looking good there all right so the next step is to reattach the fan you want to connect the fan connector back to the logic board here's where it connects there's the fan connector so what we'll do is we'll position it like we had it earlier and then just press down on that fan connector like that and make sure it's secured into place all right and then just turn the fan back over like that to reattach it to the exhaust in the logic board make sure it's all lined up with those screws for the exhaust and you may want to attach those t6 Torx screws to the exhaust first of course we're using our same tr6 Torx driver and then secure the other two Torx screws to the logic board like this alright folks the fan is secure we're almost there now we need to reattach the antenna so we grab our antenna plate so you can see the connector here and you also see the mount for the screw as well so we want to turn our Mac Mini around so that the fan is facing towards the right so you can identify the mount screw hole and the socket for the antenna so position the antenna plate like this with the cable down near the logic board and snap the antenna cable on the socket with your finger that's super easy and then secure the antenna down using the t6 Torx screw using our tr6 driver so you can see that the screw is secure and the antenna cable a snap back into place you can see it right there and again I just snap that back into the socket with my index finger alright so now it's time to risa cure the antenna plate and we'll just turn the Mac Mini back around so that the antenna is closest to me and then I'll secure the tr6 torque security screws the three longer ones first using the TRS six driver and then also cure the three shorter screws with the same driver just like that so last step is just to replace the cover so you want to make sure that you can read the words Mac Mini make sure those words are facing up like this and it just snaps back in place with some light pressure okay so here's the fun part we're all finished we're gonna fire up the Mac and see what happens so it fires up perfectly fine LED indicator works you can see I'm running Final Cut Pro but let's look at system profiler and see what the memory situation looks like on this Mac Mini I'm gonna click on memory you can see right there folks 32 gigabytes of RAM - 16 gigabyte modules in both of those small outlined M slots folks it worked and it worked very well we were able to do this in about half an hour I think if I had to do it again I could probably do it in about 15 to 20 minutes that's how easy it is of course Apple recommends bringing your Mac Mini into an Apple Store if you want to upgrade your RAM however as you saw it's a fairly straightforward upgrade if you want to do it yourself thumbs up if you appreciate this video and let me know what you guys think down below in the comments this is Jeff with the 905 Mac youin this video we show you how to easily upgrade the RAM in the 2018 Mac Mini why would you want to go through the trouble well it's as simple as this you save lots of dough for instance to configure 32 gigabytes of RAM on the Mac Mini using apples built to order tools it costs $600 you can buy 32 gigabytes of RAM for well less than half that now it does take some work but if you want to save money it's definitely worth it check out the full video right now thanks for watching nine-to-five Mac be sure to thumbs up click the subscribe button and then enable notifications with the bill icon so you won't miss any upcoming videos before we get started I want to talk about some of the tools you're gonna need I'm using I fixit's Pro tech tool kit which includes above and beyond the things you need for the Mac Mini Ram install but it does have a whole bunch of handy things like an anti-static strap you have these plastic openers there's all sorts of other tools in here that will be handy for future things that you may be doing and of course there's the driver handle and tons of different drivers to choose from we're just going to be using a few different drivers for this particular installation so the point is you don't need to invest in this full kit however I think is a good investment just overall if you like to tinker with stuff we'll have links to the full toolkit and the individual drivers that you can use if you don't want to buy the full toolkit ok so make sure you have a soft surface to flip your Mac Mini around like this make sure the ports are facing you and you can read the Mac Mini logo now you want to just take an opener or a credit card and simply pry open the plastic back cover that's super easy to remove the little black antenna should be closest to you and it was time to remove these six security screws you want to start with these three first because they are a different length than the other three so we want to use ETR 6 Torx driver and just remove these three screws and make sure you place them in an area where you can keep them separate from everything else you know which screws go where that's super important all right it's gonna remove this one and we're gonna remove this third one here all right so now we're gonna remove these three screws so same thing use your tr6 driver and we'll remove those three and make sure you place those separate from where you place the other three because they're different in length okay so now we want to lift up on the right side of the antenna plate like this because the left side is actually connected to the logic board so just use some patience and be gentle as you lift up the right side so you slide your finger under there to get some leverage and as you're lifting you want to try to slide the left side of the antenna plate down into the crevice of the Mac Mini so that you can put it as close to a 90 degree angle as possible without putting stress on the antenna cable now there is a t6 Torx screw that you'll need to remove you can use that same tr6 Torx driver that we use to remove the antenna plate so you can just gently unscrew that and remember there's still that cable attached via a socket onto the logic board so don't lift up just yet when you remove that screw set that screw aside make sure you know where it is all right so now you just use a spudger to lift up only antenna cable remove it from that socket we'll take a little bit of pressure but you want to be as gentle as possible when you lift that up alright so now it's detached and this is what it looks like that is the cable that attaches to the logic board you can see that's a very very tiny little cable there alright so now the antenna plate is completely removed you can set that aside we'll be reinstalling that later all right so now you want to remove the fan there are two screws attached to the logic board and two screws attached to the exhaust so you can use that very same tr6 driver and first we'll remove the two screws from the logic board alright that first one make sure you set it in a place where you can easily find it and now we're gonna remove the two screws from the exhaust now these screws may not pull completely out and that's okay as long as they detach from the exhaust panel that's all you need you can just leave them actually in there if you want to and we'll do the second one again our goal here is just to detach it from the exhaust panel so that you can lift up on the fan alright so we want to gently pull up and move it backwards like this so that we can access the fan connector which connects to the logic board so you don't want to actually try to remove that yet until you remove that fan connector in the tool you're gonna use to remove that or your trusty fingers so you can just grab onto the cable and gently pull up here's a close-up shot of that fan connector and then you just want to grab it as close to the connector on the logic board as you can and pull up gently and that should detach it from the logic board just pull up there we go and the fan is completely detached so that's what the logic board looks like without the fan connector there and here's the fan and there's the connector on the end alright the next step is to remove the power supply cable from the logic board so again the tool of choice are your fingers you simply lift up shimmy it out a little bit and it will disconnect all right so now one last thing to disconnect in in my opinion the most difficult thing removing the LED indicator cable from the logic board iFixit recommends taking a pair of tweezers and pulling up on the connector to remove from the socket I couldn't do that so I just removed the leads from the connector probably not the best way to do this but it did work for me I'm not as good as I fix it by any stretch of the imagination so if you can do it their way more power to you now grab your t10 Torx driver to unscrew the two screws securing the logic board to the case of the Mac this will take a little bit of muscle so we'll unscrew that first one just like that in then we'll unscrew the second one this is pretty tight screws there but once you break that initial turn it's easy to remove all right so there we go make sure you set those aside where you can find them now you want to turn your Mac Mini around like this so that the ports are facing away from you like that because we're gonna push only exhaust you want to avoid pressing on the fins but push on the two little ears of the exhaust where the screw holes are and that will pop out the logic board from the Mac Mini enclosure you can just keep pressing like that and then just pull out the logic board like this super simple super easy right now for a brief sponsor incidents are going to happen but it all comes down to how your company responds that's where I've Jeannie comes in it gives you the tools that you need in a single package for handling alerts escalation paths on call scheduling progress notes and more it features deep integration with a lot of other services that businesses rely on you can quickly see who's on call notifications existing incidents and everything else you'd expect from an end-to-end platform in one place visit ops Jeannie comm sign up and get a free company account and add up to five team members never miss a critical alert with that last option Jeannie back to our program already in progress so what the logic board removes completely that means that we're in the homestretch of this memory install for the Mac Mini but look at that logic board isn't it cute it's just super small everything's just very very compact such a beautiful design you can see how everything is just built right into this little bitty tiny enclosure and it's super impressive and you have the power supply in there as well so now we want to access the little RAM cage here and you can use a t5 Torx driver to remove that cage from the RAM so we're just going to unscrew those four screws and then you simply lift that cage off like that you may see two little rubber pieces that fit over the RAM you can just remove those like this and now you want to pull the two clips away from the RAM and that will pop it out just like that there's one module out and on this base memory configuration these are two four gigabyte sticks of ddr4 Ram for a total of eight gigabytes of RAM so we're replacing those two four gigabytes sticks with two 16 gigabyte sticks of crucial ddr4 26 66 megahertz memory of course a two hundred and sixty pin small outlined dim module just like the one we're replacing so before you insert the module make sure that little notch is lined up correctly just slide the module in and once it's inserted you want to gently push back while you're holding those clips out like that and then allow the clips to come back into contact with the memory and then you want to do the same thing for the other module you gently push and allow those clips to come back into place just like that so there we go folks we have 32 gigabytes of ddr4 ram in this Mac Mini an upgrade that normally costs $600 if you do so at the time you're configuring your Mac Mini with Apple so you want to put those little rubber Clips back in they just kind of slide back into place just make sure they're in there correctly and then you can put the cage back on so that's what we're gonna do now just slide that cage back over the RAM all right so now we can secure it again with those t5 Torx screws so we'll use our t5 driver to get that done secure all four screws and once you're done you simply slide the logic board back into place inside the Mac Mini enclosure make sure you lift up on the LED indicator cable and the power cable so you don't pinch those behind the logic board and just pop it back into place it'll just pop back in apply a little pressure and it'll snap back into place just like that all right so now it's time to do everything in Reverse so we're going to secure the logic board to the Mac Mini enclosure so we use those two t10 Torx screws and we use the t10 Driver make sure it is tight just don't go nuts and now you want to reattach the LED indicator lights cable hopefully you can just snap it back into the socket but as I told you earlier in my case I'm just gonna use the tweezers to put the leads back into the connector like that all right so now we want to reattach the power supply cable you shimmy that back in there all right so we're looking good there all right so the next step is to reattach the fan you want to connect the fan connector back to the logic board here's where it connects there's the fan connector so what we'll do is we'll position it like we had it earlier and then just press down on that fan connector like that and make sure it's secured into place all right and then just turn the fan back over like that to reattach it to the exhaust in the logic board make sure it's all lined up with those screws for the exhaust and you may want to attach those t6 Torx screws to the exhaust first of course we're using our same tr6 Torx driver and then secure the other two Torx screws to the logic board like this alright folks the fan is secure we're almost there now we need to reattach the antenna so we grab our antenna plate so you can see the connector here and you also see the mount for the screw as well so we want to turn our Mac Mini around so that the fan is facing towards the right so you can identify the mount screw hole and the socket for the antenna so position the antenna plate like this with the cable down near the logic board and snap the antenna cable on the socket with your finger that's super easy and then secure the antenna down using the t6 Torx screw using our tr6 driver so you can see that the screw is secure and the antenna cable a snap back into place you can see it right there and again I just snap that back into the socket with my index finger alright so now it's time to risa cure the antenna plate and we'll just turn the Mac Mini back around so that the antenna is closest to me and then I'll secure the tr6 torque security screws the three longer ones first using the TRS six driver and then also cure the three shorter screws with the same driver just like that so last step is just to replace the cover so you want to make sure that you can read the words Mac Mini make sure those words are facing up like this and it just snaps back in place with some light pressure okay so here's the fun part we're all finished we're gonna fire up the Mac and see what happens so it fires up perfectly fine LED indicator works you can see I'm running Final Cut Pro but let's look at system profiler and see what the memory situation looks like on this Mac Mini I'm gonna click on memory you can see right there folks 32 gigabytes of RAM - 16 gigabyte modules in both of those small outlined M slots folks it worked and it worked very well we were able to do this in about half an hour I think if I had to do it again I could probably do it in about 15 to 20 minutes that's how easy it is of course Apple recommends bringing your Mac Mini into an Apple Store if you want to upgrade your RAM however as you saw it's a fairly straightforward upgrade if you want to do it yourself thumbs up if you appreciate this video and let me know what you guys think down below in the comments this is Jeff with the 905 Mac you\n"