Sorry, having difficulty formattin code to appear correct here??? I am trying to understand the readings I get from running instruments on my app which are telling me I am leaking memory. There are a number, quite a few in fact, that get reported from inside the Foundation, AVFoundation CoreGraphics etc that I assume I have no control over and so should ignore such as: Malloc 32 bytes: 96 bytes, AVFoundation, prepareToRecordQueue or Malloc 128 bytes: 128 bytes, CoreGraphics, open_handle_to_dylib_path Am I correct in assuming these are something the system will resolve? But then there are leaks that are reported that I believe I am responsible for, such as: This call reports against this line leaks 2.31KB [self createAVAudioRecorder:frameAudioFile]; Immediately followed by this: -(NSError*) createAVAudioRecorder: (NSString *)fileName { // flush recorder to start afresh [audioRecorder release]; audioRecorder = nil; // delete existing file to ensure we have clean start [self deleteFile: fileName]; VariableStore *singleton = [VariableStore sharedInstance]; // get full path to target file to create NSString *destinationString = [singleton.docsPath stringByAppendingPathComponent: fileName]; NSURL *destinationURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath: destinationString]; // configure the recording settings NSMutableDictionary *recordSettings = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithCapacity:6]; //****** LEAKING 384 BYTES [recordSettings setObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:kAudioFormatLinearPCM] forKey: AVFormatIDKey]; //***** LEAKING 32 BYTES float sampleRate = 44100.0; [recordSettings setObject:[NSNumber numberWithFloat: sampleRate] forKey: AVSampleRateKey]; //***** LEAKING 48 BYTES [recordSettings setObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:2] forKey:AVNumberOfChannelsKey]; int bitDepth = 16; [recordSettings setObject: [NSNumber numberWithInt:bitDepth] forKey:AVLinearPCMBitDepthKey]; //***** LEAKING 48 BYTES [recordSettings setObject:[NSNumber numberWithBool:YES] forKey:AVLinearPCMIsBigEndianKey]; [recordSettings setObject:[NSNumber numberWithBool: NO]forKey:AVLinearPCMIsFloatKey]; NSError *recorderSetupError = nil; // create the new recorder with target file audioRecorder = [[AVAudioRecorder alloc] initWithURL: destinationURL settings: recordSettings error: &recorderSetupError]; //***** LEAKING 1.31KB [recordSettings release]; recordSettings = nil; // check for erros if (recorderSetupError) { UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle: @"Can't record" message: [recorderSetupError localizedDescription] delegate: nil cancelButtonTitle: @"OK" otherButtonTitles: nil]; [alert show]; [alert release]; alert = nil; return recorderSetupError; } [audioRecorder prepareToRecord]; //***** LEAKING 512 BYTES audioRecorder.delegate = self; return recorderSetupError; } I do not understand why there is a leak as I release audioRecorder at the start and set to nil and I release recordSettings and set to nil? Can anyone enlighten me please? Thanks