How to clean up R memory (without the need to restart my PC)?

Maybe you can try to use the function gc(). A call of gc() causes a garbage collection to take place. It can be useful to call gc() after a large object has been removed, as this may prompt R to return memory to the operating system. gc() also return a summary of the occupy memory.

I came under the same problem with R. I dig a bit and come with a solution, that we need to restart R session to fully clean the memory/RAM. For this, you can use a simple code after removing everything from your workspace. the code is as follows :

rm(list = ls())

.rs.restartR()

Use ls() function to see what R objects are occupying space. use rm("objectName") to clear the objects from R memory that is no longer required. See this too.