Articles/Python

MemoryError in Python — What It Means and How to Fix It

What Python's MemoryError exception means and how to resolve it.

Published October 28, 2026

MemoryError is raised when an operation runs out of available memory.

Key points

  • Catch it specifically with "except MemoryError:" when you want to handle this exact case rather than a bare except

Example

Typically caused by trying to allocate an extremely large data structure
More Python articles