What is garbage collection in .NET?

Garbage collection is automatic managed-memory reclamation performed by the .NET Garbage Collector (GC). It identifies managed objects that are no longer reachable and can reclaim their memory.

The GC reduces the need for manual memory allocation and deallocation. However, developers still need to manage unmanaged resources such as file handles, database-related resources, sockets, and native handles appropriately.

Garbage collection is nondeterministic, meaning developers generally do not know the exact moment an unreachable object will be collected.