US Patent 7765528 Identifying sources of memory retention

One embodiment relates to a method for identifying sources of memory retention in an executing application. A size of a set of objects is tracked over multiple periods. A period is determined to be a growth period if the size for the set of objects increases above a previous maximum size, and the number of growth periods is counted. The set of objects is flagged as having potential undesired object retention (a memory leak) if the number of growth periods is greater than a threshold number. Other embodiments are also disclosed.