Windows Subsystem for Linux(WSL)Memory Issues - How to Limit

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Memory Usage - Limiting

According to Windows docs ,

The version of WSL that you are running will impact the configuration settings. WSL 2 runs as a lightweight virtual machine (VM), 
so uses virtualization settings that allow you to control the amount of memory or processors used (which may be familiar if you use Hyper-V or VirtualBox).

By Defautlt , 50% of total memory on Windows or 8GB, whichever is less; on builds before 20175: 80% of your total memory on Windows.

So default settings takes lot of RAM.

Solution:

Create a new file C:\Users\YourUsername\.wslconfig and set memory according to your needs. Example

[wsl2]
memory=3GB

Restart WSL

wsl --shutdown

YOu can run free from WSL terminal to check how much is allocated and how much is avaiable

Please refer to here for advanced settings