diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9ea33412..a1c1dc66 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 ### Pipeline Updates
 
 ### Bug fixes & refactoring
+- 🐛 leave some spare memory for samtools sort (again) #81
 
 ## [v2.4.0](https://github.com/nf-core/methylseq/releases/tag/2.4.0) - 2023-06-02
 
diff --git a/modules/nf-core/samtools/sort/main.nf b/modules/nf-core/samtools/sort/main.nf
index 1e5181d4..909bdcd0 100644
--- a/modules/nf-core/samtools/sort/main.nf
+++ b/modules/nf-core/samtools/sort/main.nf
@@ -21,15 +21,15 @@ process SAMTOOLS_SORT {
     script:
     def args = task.ext.args ?: ''
     def prefix = task.ext.prefix ?: "${meta.id}"
-    def sort_memory = (task.memory.mega/task.cpus).intValue()
+    def sort_memory = (task.memory.mega-6000/task.cpus).intValue()
     if ("$bam" == "${prefix}.bam") error "Input and output names are the same, use \"task.ext.prefix\" to disambiguate!"
     """
     samtools sort \\
-        $args \\
         -@ $task.cpus \\
         -m ${sort_memory}M \\
         -o ${prefix}.bam \\
         -T $prefix \\
+        $args \\
         $bam
 
     cat <<-END_VERSIONS > versions.yml