Apple OCR framework seems to be holding on to allocations every time it is called.

Environment:

macOS 26.2 (Tahoe) Xcode 16.3 Apple Silicon (M4) Sandboxed Mac App Store app Description:

Repeated use of VNRecognizeTextRequest causes permanent memory growth in the host process. The physical footprint increases by approximately 3-15 MB per OCR call and never returns to baseline, even after all references to the request, handler, observations, and image are released.

` private func selectAndProcessImage() { let panel = NSOpenPanel() panel.allowedContentTypes = [.image] panel.allowsMultipleSelection = false panel.canChooseDirectories = false panel.message = "Select an image for OCR processing"

    guard panel.runModal() == .OK, let url = panel.url else { return }

    selectedImageURL = url
    isProcessing = true
    recognizedText = "Processing..."

    // Run OCR on a background thread to keep UI responsive
    let workItem = DispatchWorkItem {
        let result = performOCR(on: url)

        DispatchQueue.main.async {
            recognizedText = result
            isProcessing = false
        }
    }
    DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async(execute: workItem)
}

private func performOCR(on url: URL) -> String {
    // Wrap EVERYTHING in autoreleasepool so all ObjC objects are drained immediately
    let resultText: String = autoreleasepool {
        // Load image and convert to CVPixelBuffer for explicit memory control
        guard let imageData = try? Data(contentsOf: url) else {
            return "Error: Could not read image file."
        }

        guard let nsImage = NSImage(data: imageData) else {
            return "Error: Could not create image from file data."
        }

        guard let cgImage = nsImage.cgImage(forProposedRect: nil, context: nil, hints: nil) else {
            return "Error: Could not create CGImage."
        }

        let width = cgImage.width
        let height = cgImage.height

        // Create a CVPixelBuffer from the CGImage
        var pixelBuffer: CVPixelBuffer?
        let attrs: [String: Any] = [
            kCVPixelBufferCGImageCompatibilityKey as String: true,
            kCVPixelBufferCGBitmapContextCompatibilityKey as String: true
        ]
        let status = CVPixelBufferCreate(
            kCFAllocatorDefault,
            width,
            height,
            kCVPixelFormatType_32ARGB,
            attrs as CFDictionary,
            &pixelBuffer
        )

        guard status == kCVReturnSuccess, let buffer = pixelBuffer else {
            return "Error: Could not create CVPixelBuffer (status: \(status))."
        }

        // Draw the CGImage into the pixel buffer
        CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(buffer, [])
        guard let context = CGContext(
            data: CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(buffer),
            width: width,
            height: height,
            bitsPerComponent: 8,
            bytesPerRow: CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(buffer),
            space: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(),
            bitmapInfo: CGImageAlphaInfo.noneSkipFirst.rawValue
        ) else {
            CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, [])
            return "Error: Could not create CGContext for pixel buffer."
        }
        context.draw(cgImage, in: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: width, height: height))
        CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, [])

        // Run OCR
        let requestHandler = VNImageRequestHandler(cvPixelBuffer: buffer, options: [:])

        let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest()
        request.recognitionLevel = .accurate
        request.usesLanguageCorrection = true

        do {
            try requestHandler.perform([request])
        } catch {
            return "Error during OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)"
        }

        guard let observations = request.results, !observations.isEmpty else {
            return "No text found in image."
        }

        let lines = observations.compactMap { observation in
            observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string
        }

        // Explicitly nil out the pixel buffer before the pool drains
        pixelBuffer = nil

        return lines.joined(separator: "\n")
    }
    // Everything — Data, NSImage, CGImage, CVPixelBuffer, VN objects — released here

    return resultText
}

`