Slava Murygin shows ways to simplify starting and stopping SQL Server services on local instances:
Step 3: Easily Stop SQL Server Service.
That is very possible you performed some very heavy and memory intense operation by your local SQL Server instance and it ate all your free memory. You do not need it anymore, but SQL Server won’t easily give memory back.
The easiest way to claim all your memory is to stop your SQL Server.
There are some easy ways doing it:
– First way us using SQL Server Management Studio. You just have to do a right click on your local SQL Server instance and choose “Stop”.
The use case for Slava’s advice is a scenario in which you have SQL Server installed on a local machine with very little RAM.