Error message says startup disk is full but I have 611 GB available on HD?

Keep getting message that the startup disk is full. Checked and have 611GB available on the HD. Help!

"...When I look at the get info screen it says 24mb left..."
What did you do a get info on?

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Error box says startup disk is full?

Keep getting message that startup disk is full? What does that mean?

Hi Yvonne! Hi Tracy!
Which OS you are on? (Go on Apple-Menu top left and "about this mac"). There has been an issue with with 10.7.1
Please update to 10.7.2
To watch the space of your HD I recommend GrandPerspektive
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
There is an other tool, which I don't know, but others recommend: "WhatSize"
marek

I keep getting a message "Your startup disk is full" but it isn't

I keep getting a message "Your startup disk is full" and my space on the HD fluctuates every second. I have 113 Gbs of free space, but it disappears within seconds and reappears again and repeats.

Yes you should back it up.
Do you have the OS 10.6 disk? You will need it. If you don't have it, you can get one here:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
The repair disk procedure does not erase anything on the drive. But before you go any further you should back it up.

My computer says startup disk is full but it isn't. Is there a fix?

I'm getting a message saying my startup disk is full, and I need to delete files. However, I'm only using about 15% of my hard drive (macbook is less than a year old). Any suggestions what might be going on?

How do you know you're only using 15% of the hard drive?
There could be a number of things going on. In the first instance, I'd run Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and use it to run Verify Disk.
Bob

I am being told my startup disk is full, but I have 4.58 gigs left. Any help on this?, I am being told my startup disk is full, but I have 4.58 gigs left. Any help on this?

Because of this - I am unable to download music etc.

Your internal drive cannot be only half full with only 4.58 GBs of free space unless you only have a 10 GB hard drive. Hardly likely in a MBP.
If you backup and/or transfer data from the internal drive do you you then delete the data from the internal drive? If not, then it's all still there taking up space.
You might try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.7.2 to see what's taking up space on your drive. More tips will be found at the XLabs site's FAQ.

It shows startup disk is full but i use just only 350gb of my hd disk from 500gb.

my macbook shows its startup disk is full but i use just 350gb of my 500gb hd.

That pretty clearly shows the drive is full. So first a question: Why do you believe there's an error? How do you know there's only 350 GB in use? Second is to do the following:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Again, check your drive usage for any changes.

How do I view and open all my files again that are on my external hard drive?? Error message saying 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' Three options are Initialize, Ignore or Eject.

I have recently purchased Toshiba 1TB hard drive and I set it up and I was able to transfer all my files onto it such as my music, photos, documents. I had correctly ejected and used it again and all these files were safely stored and accessible afterwards. However after I rebooted my computer as it had been going slow and I had too much clogging it up once I reconnected the external hard drive I have error message saying 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer' Three options are Initialize, Ignore or Eject. How do I access all my files? I set it up to work on both mac and windows. I have tried both another mac and windows computer and same issue occurs?? I am worried that all my personal files are gone but am confused as the drive has had absolutely no damage to it as it was in a very short time frame and its never left the same spot. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
Therefore I need to attempt to use my external hard drive with a machine that boasts OS X 10.6.5 or above and then it should work?
Thanks

Its saying startup disk almost full. have no music or photos on computer. how do i clear it up and free up the HD

its saying startup disk almost full. have no music or photos on computer. how do i clear it up and free up the HD

There are some items to the right of these reply boxes,
of them a few are likely to be of help to some extent...
Without knowing which OS X version, advice will be not specific
and to answer three different ways when one of them is correct
is a waste of time.
Is your OS X newer than Lion 10.7.5? IF so different rules apply
to finding out what is free space, where it is, & how to tell if it is.
For systems older than Lion (Snow Leopard, Leopard, Tiger, Panther)
the rules are a little different, since there would not be an Other item
on the hard disk drive which could contain items necessary to the OS
yet not detailed to the user.
And Lion 10.7 has a few hidden files that are hard to locate, and one
of them may have some bearing on the missing space of a HDD.
The items here, mostly for 10.7:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24954432#24954432
start up disk full, other options:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11808734#11808734
There are Support articles, you could use Help viewer in the
system, on your computer, to look for results; or use google.
However, avoid the temptation to use a badware such as cleanmymac,
mackeeper, and others that are sources of known trouble to the Mac.
Good luck & happy computing!

I keep getting the message that my startup disk is full, yet I have about 300GB of space left on my HD? Any solutions for fixing this problem?

I keep getting the message that my startup disk is full, yet I have almost 300GB left on my hardrive. I have emptied the trash on my desktop and in iPhoto, and I have removed unnecessary programs. The only way I can get the message to go away is to restart my computer. If I let the computer go to sleep, I get the message back when I start using it again. Any suggestions?

Mountain Lion Recovery
Boot up from your computer by holding down the command+r keys. This will take you to the recovery drive.
Select Disk Utility & hit Return.
In Disk Utility select the HD on the left & click on Repair Disk (bottom right).
=======================
Empty the trash in the Dock as well as iPhoto’s trash!
Open up your application folder & go through all your apps. Trash all the apps you no longer want and/or use.
An easier way to do this is to open the Application folder in list view & press the Command+j keys.
In the the dialog that appears, click the "This Window Only" button & the "Calculate All Sizes" check box.
Wait a bit until your file & folder sizes have all been calculated, then click the "Size" column to sort your apps from the fattest to the most anorexic.
Get rid of all your photo files you don't want and/or need. Same goes for those pics off the websites you downloaded (gifs, jpegs, etc.). Or transfer/move them all to a photo/movie storage site like ImageShack and Photobucket, 2 of the most popular FREE storage sites.
Get rid of all your video & music files you no longer view and/or listen too. Especially, if you already have the actual CD/DVDs or you can later redownload from a website. Or transfer them all to a FREE video/movies and/or music storage site.
Use Spotlight to make sure you got rid of everything. You can even trash directly from Spotlight! Better yet, download this FREE software called Find File. This app puts Spotlight to shame (works w/Mountain Lion).
Drag what you don't want and/or need to the trash. Better yet, download this neat little shareware app *demo* called AppZapper. It basically does all the work for you by not only trashing the apps but the apps preference files, caches & all its associated files.
Another software that does the above is AppDelete. Best of all this software is free!
Burn what you want and/or need onto CDs or DVDs. Not everyone has the luxury of purchasing an external HD and/or the system requirements for iCloud to store their "stuff.”
Dropbox is a free storage utility to check out.
You can check with your ISP to see if they offer *free* storage space. Most if not all do now-a-days. There are thousands if not millions of *free* storage facilities on the web also. Use your favorite search engine to search them out as they come in different storage sizes to fit your needs & wants.
Check for duplicate fonts.
Applications>Font Book
Select “All Fonts”
If you see any “black dots” next to any fonts this mean you have duplicates and/or multiple versions of these fonts.
To clean this up, select a “black dotted” font or the Apple + *click* to select multiple dotted fonts;
Edit>Resolve>Duplicates.
What the above does is turns off the duplicates & multiple version fonts. Not delete them.
More than likely the “extras” were installed by other programs and/or other users.
Clear out font caches
Use FontNuke. It does all the work for you. And, best of all it’s *FREE*.
Printer Drivers
Get rid of all the printer drivers you don’t need & use except the ones for your *current* printer(s)/scanner(s).
HD>Library>Printers Folder
If you accidently threw something out that you needed for your printer/scanner it can be easily obtained from the manufacturer’s website and/or from the CD that came w/the printer/scanner.
Garage Band
Has about 1GB of loops stored. Get rid of some some them. You surely don’t use, like and/or need them all.
HD>Library>Audio/Apple Loops>Apple>Apple Loops For GarageBand
Or just get rid of the Garage Band app altogether if you don’t use it.
Get rid of extra languages
Strip your computer down to your “native” tongue.
You can do this with a *FREE* utility called Monolingual. Another app that apparently does all the work for you. I’ve never used it. However, a lot of users here swear by & recommend it highly.
However, there is a warning for *native English speakers*. Make sure you keep BOTH English and English (United States).
Other Resources:
HD Space Checkers:
Disk Inventory X (FREE)
WhatSize (SHAREWARE)
OmniDiskSweeper (FREE)
GrandPerspective (FREE - donation)
Mac Performance Guide
Slimming your hard drive
Rule of thumb: You should never let your hard drive get to where you have only 10-15% of space left.

I'm trying to sync my ipad to the itunes library - but I get an error message saying I Tunes Library full. What can I do?

I have an Ipad 2. I am trying to sync my ipad to the itunes library, but I get an error message - saying the itunes library is full. How can that be? I've deleted lots from the library to see if that would help - but it still states I am about 25gb short. Can anyone help what to do?

Could any of the music have been sourced on an external USB drive or a network drive? In iTunes, go to one of the songs that won't sync. Bring up the info page, and look at the location of that song on the disk. Does that file and path exist? That could be your problem, especially if they were on a USB drive you forgot about.

I am getting a message that startup disk is full. Any advice?Startup Up Disk Error Message

I am getting a pop up message that my startup disk is full. How do I address this?

Delete some of your files and then empty the Trash to free up space on the disk.

My mac air says " startup disk is full".How to solve ???

My Mac air has a message during starting the computer and says that startup disk if full. In the composition of my hard there are 120 GB used space on other parts, which I have not understand where is these files.

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the available space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

What can I do when my macbook air says startup disk is full

What can I do and where do I look to offload things when my macbook air says my startup disk is full?
Thanks

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

"Startup Disk Almost Full" But 190gb Free?

So I recently downloaded a program (MCMap Live) to make an image of my Minecraft world.
I ran it the first time and it took up all my RAM like expected, but gave me issues.
So I try to run it again without any other programs besides Finder running and my Mac started puking out this error that my startup disk was almost full and I had to kill some apps or delete files.
I open Finder and it tells me I have over 190gb of free space...
I ignored the warning and after the program was finished and I restarted, my airport card stopped working. So I restart again.
The airport card turns back on, but now I can't run any intensive programs because that error about my startup disk keeps coming back and shutting them down.
Does anyone know what is going on and how to fix it?
MacBook Pro Late 2008
2.53GHz
4G Ram
320 Gb Hard Drive
Snow Leopard 10.6.8
Thanks in advance.

So I recently downloaded a program (MCMap Live) to make an image of my Minecraft world.
I ran it the first time and it took up all my RAM like expected, but gave me issues.
So I try to run it again without any other programs besides Finder running and my Mac started puking out this error that my startup disk was almost full and I had to kill some apps or delete files.
I open Finder and it tells me I have over 190gb of free space...
I ignored the warning and after the program was finished and I restarted, my airport card stopped working. So I restart again.
The airport card turns back on, but now I can't run any intensive programs because that error about my startup disk keeps coming back and shutting them down.
Does anyone know what is going on and how to fix it?
MacBook Pro Late 2008
2.53GHz
4G Ram
320 Gb Hard Drive
Snow Leopard 10.6.8
Thanks in advance.

Startup disk almost full but cannot log on to delete items

when I start up my MacBook air it said "start up disk almost full" but I cannot even log on my act to get to my home screen to attempt to delete stuff... what do I do?

Step 1
The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.
There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.
a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later.
b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.
c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.
Step 2
You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation.

Error message says startup disk is full but I have 611 GB available on HD?

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