Activity monitor file cache

In activity monitor it shows that I have 16GB of physical memory, 12.77 GB used memory, 16GB virtual memory.
It also shows App memory 1.9GB, FILE CACHE 9.56GB and wired memory 1.31GB.
My question is in regards to file cache at 9.56GB.  What is file cache and why is it so high?  Does this mean I should install more memory?  I looked file cache up and I think it's memory that has been used but is not being used currently, it's waiting to be used again.  Not sure if that's right though, or what it really means.  Thanks for any help.
Late 2013 27" iMac, 3.4 GHz i5
16GB ram
OSX 10.9.4

Thank you, that helps.  I'm not super tech savvy, but this is what I took from that article.
The app memory + wired memory + file cache = memory used.  So since the memory used includes file cache, I'm not really running out of memory as I thought I was.  The file cache is basically RAM on stand by in case it's needed by any app.  God, I hope I got that right!
The memory pressure on my activity monitor shows green.

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    Message was edited by: roam

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  • Random Problem: Mail Process 140% in Activity Monitor/1 IMAP Account

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        +                         ! : 1 -[IMAPResponse responseType]  (in IMAP) + 15  [0x7fff8d7ac1af]
        +                         ! : 1 objc_msgSend  (in libobjc.A.dylib) + 25  [0x7fff88ae9259]
        +                         ! 2 -[IMAPMailboxSyncEngine _processResponsesWithMonitor:]  (in IMAP) + 393,1057  [0x7fff8d7a2b04,0x7fff8d7a2d9c]
        +                         ! 1 -[IMAPMailboxSyncEngine _processResponsesWithMonitor:]  (in IMAP) + 111  [0x7fff8d7a29ea]
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        +                         ! :   1 objc_sync_exit  (in libobjc.A.dylib) + 23  [0x7fff88aed4e8]
        +                         ! :     1 id2data(objc_object*, usage)  (in libobjc.A.dylib) + 709  [0x7fff88afddc4]
        +                         ! 1 -[IMAPMailboxSyncEngine _processResponsesWithMonitor:]  (in IMAP) + 606  [0x7fff8d7a2bd9]
        +                         !   1 objc_msgSend  (in libobjc.A.dylib) + 25  [0x7fff88ae9259]
        +                         1 -[IMAPMailboxSyncEngine _goWithMessages:]  (in IMAP) + 808  [0x7fff8d7a2520]
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        +                           1 -[IMAPMailboxSyncEngine isReset]  (in IMAP) + 1  [0x7fff8d79cd57]
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        + !           : | + ! 546 -[IMAPConnection prepareAndExecuteOperation:outWrongState:]  (in IMAP) + 1247  [0x7fff8d7859f5]
        + !           : | + !   546 -[IMAPClientFetchOperation executeOnConnection:]  (in IMAP) + 26  [0x7fff8d778ee2]
        + !           : | + !     546 -[IMAPConnection executeFetch:]  (in IMAP) + 44  [0x7fff8d78b3d1]
        + !           : | + !       538 -[IMAPConnection _responseFromSendingOperation:]  (in IMAP) + 863  [0x7fff8d78ba87]
        + !           : | + !       : 480 -[IMAPConnection _copyNextTaggedOrContinuationResponseForCommand:exists:]  (in IMAP) + 551  [0x7fff8d7867eb]
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        + !           : | + !       : | + ! 129 -[IMAPConnection(MFPrivate) _readDataOfLength:intoData:error:]  (in IMAP) + 112  [0x7fff8d78ce14]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : 126 -[IMAPConnection _readLineIntoData:error:]  (in IMAP) + 53  [0x7fff8d786486]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | 90 -[Connection _readLineIntoData:error:]  (in CoreMessage) + 202  [0x7fff89cf14f3]
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        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | +   90 -[Connection _readBytesFromSocketIntoBuffer:amount:requireAllBytes:error:]  (in CoreMessage) + 76  [0x7fff89cf1a7b]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | +     89 -[_NSSocket readBytes:length:error:]  (in CoreMessage) + 161  [0x7fff89cd78cb]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | +     ! 50 _handleRequestWithTimeout  (in CoreMessage) + 1717  [0x7fff89cd51a7]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | +     ! : 44 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) _removePort:forMode:]  (in Foundation) + 460  [0x7fff8eb4513d]
        + !           : | + !       : | + ! : | +     ! : | 40 ???  (in Mail)  load address 0x1024e3000 + 0x45ff  [0x1024e75ff]
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    Thank you for your help.

    Step 1
    Take this step only if you have more than one incoming mail account, and only some of them are affected by the problem.
    From the Mail menu bar, select
    Mail ▹ Preferences ▹ Accounts
    From the account list on the left, choose one of the accounts that is not giving trouble. Select the Account Informationtab if not already selected, and then uncheck the box marked
    Enable this account
    Repeat with each of the other well-behaved accounts. Don't disable the problem accounts.
    Step 2
    From the Mail menu bar, select
    Window ▹ Connection Doctor
    Click the Show Detail button. A drawer opens. Click Check Again and post the text that appears. Anonymize any personal information before posting.
    Step 3
    If you took Step 1, re-enable the disabled accounts.

  • Activity Monitor/RAM/Slowness

    I updated to Mavericks the day of the update, and I switched to Safari (from Firefox) immediately too (Safari now my default and Firefox having various other tabs open simultaneously).
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    For instance, my used memory keeps going up, with nothing happening. This morning the computer was using 11.99gb of my 12gb memory, with swap increasing too. So I rebooted, telling it to NOT reopen windows on bootup. With nothing running, ram usage was 3gb, then 4gb, climbing continuously and it's now over 5 with just Firefox running to type this request. App memory is 1.75 and file cache 2.35, which from looking at other threads seem to be pretty high - this is less than 5 minutes after a total restart by the way.
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    I'm afraid Steve is right, your memory is fine.
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  • Can I safely quit task demanding activities in the Activity Monitor?

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