Getting Message: "Startup Disk is Full" on a brand new 1TB Mac

Hi,
My Mac is 4 months old. I have only installed the iWork package and some family pictures (no movies or other media) and yet, I keep getting the message that my startup disk is full. When I dig deeper, it tells me that i have only 4GB of free space left and that I over 550 000 files on the computer. How is this possible? Are there any known viruses that do this? How do I clean my MAC without losing everything that I want to keep (like my photos) nor having to take it in to a Mac Store? (I've already emptied trash, cache and history). I'm new to Mac, so, I am not quite sure how to troubleshoot my problems.
Any help would be appreciated.

Get OmniDisk Sweeper (free) to see where all the space is being used. Don't start deleting things, just yet.
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/
However, it won't show you the disk usage of other users. For that, you will have to log in to their accounts.
There are some other things we can look at if you can't locate where the disk space is going, using the above. (Could be a "ghost" volume from a failed backup or some runaway error logging. But first check using OmniDisk and the space being used by other users, if any.)

Similar Messages

Getting messages "startup disk is full" and activity monitor is showing "syslog d" is using a lot of CPU. I'm planning on getting more memory for my late 2008 model Macbook but wondering if there's something that is causing problems that I can also fix.

I had closed out of all of my programs but heard the internal fans running so I checked the activity monitor. It shows syslog d as the top process using the CPU right now. I have no idea what that means.
I read a thread about the startup disk being full and how you can free up memory. I have an airport extreme so TimeCapsule is backing up everything. I do have a bunch of pictures on iPhoto on the laptop; could move those to another location but I'm a little gunshy. I know they are on the TimeCapsule but I would like to save them to a second place before deleting from laptop just to be sure. I went through several things yesterday and emptied trash, etc. I wasn't able to locate the hidden files that the thread about the startup disk being full was referencing --- they were talking about large emails that were causing processes to happen taking up the CPU.... I wasn't able to find out if that was the case for me.
Also I'm going to look into getting another 2MB of memory and installing it on the Macbook, so I can upgrade to the latest OS. Anyone have an idea if that is worth the $$$ over buying a new laptop? Or anyone have ideas as to where to buy memory, etc.
Any ideas - help!

Go step by step and test.
1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
   http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
    iTunes > Preferences > Devices
    Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
    This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
    System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

Getting message - startup disk is full - in Yosemite, but its not full

Since upgrading from Mavericks to Yosemite I began getting error messages saying my Start up disk is full (or almost full). Then my Air more or less stops functioning and asks me about apps I want to force quit. When I check "About this Mac" > Storage, it says I still have 15 GB available so it doesn't seem like this is a storage issue. Is this just a bug in Yosemite?.

Get OmniDisk Sweeper (free) to see where all the space is being used. Don't start deleting things, just yet.
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/
However, it won't show you the disk usage of other users. For that, you will have to log in to their accounts.
There are some other things we can look at if you can't locate where the disk space is going, using the above. (Could be a "ghost" volume from a failed backup or some runaway error logging. But first check using OmniDisk and the space being used by other users, if any.)

Why do I keep getting the message "startup-disk is full"?

Why do I keep getting the message "startup-disk is full"?
I checked my memory and it says...
FREE- 2.64GB
WIRED-885.5MB
ACTIVE-237.0MB
INACTIVE-262.9MB
USED-1.35GB
Sorry I know nothing about computers.

Ideally an external HD, but at a pinch you may be able to get enough on to USB thumb drives to free up enough space to carry out an orderly backup.
Just remember that you need to move the files, not just copy them; in other words, once the file is on the thumb drive, the original needs to be deleted and the trash emptied to free up the space on your internal. So for any really important stuff you may wish to copy it to more than one drive for safety.
also see;
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
How to free up my disk space
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

I think as drive capacities increase, the old 10-15% becomes less accurate. The amount of free space you need doesn't really have anything to do with the drive size. So, increasing your drive size shouldn't mean that you need to have more free GB (which using a % of drive space would mean). You need free space to accommodate page outs (the amount of which would depend on how much RAM you have installed and how memory intensive the applications are), sleep images (again, this would max out at your total amount of RAM), and a bit to minimize fragmentation.
With desktop drives commonly in the 2TB range today, it is certainly not necessary to have 200GB+ free in order to maintain proper operation. I generally find about 30GB to be the minimum I'm comfortable with. Mind you, I pretty much always have way more than that available. But, if I'm working on a system and the amount of free space is at least 30GB, I would generally not site drive space as the cause of any performance issues. I'd say that 30GB is a minimum for a stable system (with 8GB or RAM installed). Of course at that amount, you would still need to free up space if you were to want to install or download any significant amount of data.
With servers being more likely to run into the 16GB of RAM range, more storage would be necessary. Most servers should be well stocked with storage, but the actual needs would vary greatly depending on what's being "served".
The 10-15% thing came about when we used to talk about drive capacities in hundreds of MBs and RAM in terms of KB (not MB and certainly not GB). More drive space is always a good thing, but as drive capacities continue to sky rocket, we don't need to dedicate larger amounts of storage on systems with the same specifications. A set amount of space is required for proper operation regardless of the capacity of the drive installed.

HT3680 My 3 year old iMac is freezing and I get a message "startup disk almost full for running applications. delete files..." Where do I find the startup disk and what should I delete?

My 3 year old Mac is having trouble and freezes up from time to time lately. I get a message saying "startup disk almost full, delete files ..." something about having enough room for applications to function. I know my startup disk is the Macintosh HD, but what kind of files do I need to delete and how much space do I need to free up? In my "about this mac" area, it says I have 4.89gb free out of 319.21 So I am confused why I need to do this.

You're less than 2% free and should always have at least 15% (my SWAG). Best is to get an ext FWHD and move stuff from the startup disk to it and delete it from that. Best things to move are movies, music, and photos, using the apps that manage those things.

Warning message: Startup disk is full-what does this mean and how do I fix?

HI. I keep getting this warning that my startup disk is full -- but I just recently deleted many files. how do I fix?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305454 Mac OS X 10.4: FileVault - "There isn't enough space on your hard disk..." alert
Empty the 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.).
Get rid of all your music files you no longer listen too. Especially, if you already have the actual CD/DVDs or you can later redownload from a website.
Use Spotlight to make sure you got rid of everything. You can even trash directly from Spotlight!
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 Mobile accounts to store their "stuff.”
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)
Knowledge Base Article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303602 Mac Maintenance Quick Assist
Scroll down to "4) Prune Through Your Files".
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.
!http://i50.tinypic.com/izvwo1.gif!

How do I rectify start up disk almost full. I am new to Macs and struggling

How do I rectify a start up disk almost full message? Never had this until I put a load of photos on to my Mac book air

Hello Kirkcaldy Ronnie,
As Plotinus Veritas said take a backup for your Images on External Hard Disk.
As your Macbook Air Startup disk is full and if you are unable to do anything on your Mac follow the below process to boot your Mac in Safe Mode and then delete some files on your Mac to free up some disk space and then you should be able to boot in Normal Mode.
Steps : > Turn of your Macbook completely by holding the Power On/Off key on your Mac's keyboard > Turn On your Mac again and simultaneously press and hold the Left Shift key on your keyboard and this should take your Macbook in Safe Mode. ( Note : You will see a loading bar at startup when you boot your Mac in safe mode and your Mac will take some time to boot) > Once you login to the User Account on your Mac go ahead an delete as many files as you can from your Mac to free up some space (try to delete and make as much space as you can and keep at least 20% space free of the total amount of your disk space on your Mac Disk) and also empty the Trash of your Mac to completely remove the files from your Mac. > Now you can restart your Mac and let it start in Normal mode and check of you are able to login. If you are able to login in normal mode then try to transfer the data which you do not use regularly on an external hard disk and keep internal space free as much as you can as that will help you to get a better performance of your Mac. Hope this helps you.

Why do i get a startup disk almost full message?

I am getting a message that my startup disk is almost full. My HDD is roughly 500GB and 327GB are free. Doesn't make much sense to me. Any ideas? Something strange in one of the latest updates? Is there some setting I need to change in order to open up more memory for system files? Something else?
Thanks!
Joe S.

See this, perhaps it can help
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
 Cheat sheet to help diagnose and fix your Mac
 Most commonly used backup methods explained
 Data recovery efforts explained
Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's

I keep getting the error message 'STARTUP DISK IS FULL' my comp is only 5 months old. what do I do?

Can anyone help, I keep getting the startupdisk is full message. My comp is only 5 months old, I dont know why it has happened, nor do I know what to do with it? I have tried following some of the threads, but I dont understand the solutions, could somebody help me using basic idiot language please? I am so frustrated, as I am new to Mac. Thanks

softwater wrote:
Please do not recommend OmniDiskSweeper without the appropriate caution.
OmniDiskSweeper is a useful utiity, but it needs to be handled with care. You will see many large files and directories which you will not understand the purpose of and the deletion of which will totally wreck your system.
Use ODS by all means, but do not delete ANYTHING that is not a file you have personally created and only if you are sure you know what it is. Also backup your disk before going off to delete things which in the heat of the moment to free up space you think are not worth keeping, but which you may later regret not having.
The precautions are noted on the download site, which are there for people to read. Otherwise I do not see my post as mentioning deleting a single file, only (as per the instructions provided by the Developer's) to check where the large files were residing on the drive. Please do not add information to a post that was not included in the first place.
Thanks
Pete

Message startup disk is full

Help! I got this message last evening and googled it and now know that it means my disk is full. What do I delete? I have backup 3 running can I delete some of the backups? They go all the way back to Aug 2007. I also have Marcomedia even though I have all the other Adobe programs showing, Adobe Bridge - 2 versions, Contribue CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Flash CS3, Illustraor CS3, Stock Photos - 2 versions? I have Photoshop CS2 and CS3 can I delete CS2? I know to clean up my photos. Anything else that I'm missing?

How big is your harddrive? Restarting the computer will allow the system to remove some of its temporary files. If you leave your system on for long periods of times (weeks) and you use a lot of memory-intensive programs (Adobe CS3) then your system has probably built up a lot of temp files. The best way to get rid of Adobe CS2 is to use the uninstallers available on the CS2 disks. Check the CS2 manual for the best way to remove it. I would also suggest that you get an external harddrive. From the list of programs you provided, it sounds like you do a lot of graphic design work. The standard internal harddrive of even the most recent Macs probably isn't sufficient for the size and volume of data you process. Check out a local or online Apple store for external harddrives - both for storage and backup purposes.
-J

ITunes message "Startup disk nearly full" however HD drive 224Mb free??..??

When i double click on the HD i can read from the bottom of the window that I have 222.4 Mb available, i also have my itunes downloads going straight into my external harddrive rather than my internal harddrive.
makes me think i've misunderstood what startup disk means - i thought it was the HD... does someone have some idea, or is that 223.4 mb is actually low.
in the 'memoryslot' within the 'about this mac' i can see that i have two memory slots - bank 0 (1gb) and bank 1 (1gb). what does that mean? (I'm not a techy person, so it all sounds super confusing to me).
help....please....
thanks

I was going to post a similar problem, my hard drive shows 397mb available, this goes down all the time until I delete or move something else. But now I've deleted or moved everything I can (the only applications left are pages, itunes, iphoto, mail, safari and preview) I have no idea where the used 111GB it says is 'on the disk' is.
I don't live anywhere there is apple help for someone to look through the system, so I need help please. Where and what is being stored that is 111gb??? PLEEEEEEEASE I need (easy to understand) help.

Error message startup disk is full but it isn't

I have emptied trash, and cleared folders, I have only had the notebook a month, so it really cant have the 675,240 files on it! any ideas??

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
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.

Why does my new macbook pro display the message "startup disk is full" when i have less than 50 gb used on a 500 gb hard drive?

This is really a problem since i need to save stuff for school work and i can't currently do that.

It happens anytime I log in, try to save something, or open a new application that may require me to save something. Any advice would be helpful

"startup disk almost full" message - NOT TRUE! I have about 900 GB of free space. What can I do about this?

I have been getting repeated messages "startup disk almost full". I am on a very new iMac running Lion with the most up to date OS. This is a 1 TB iMac. When I first got the message, I cleaned almost everything but the applications off the disk. I now have more than 900 GB of space but again I am getting the message. I found someone reporting the same problem and he said Apple Care reported a but in the mail system. He found a Fix but it is not working for me. (He clicked the option key and opened finder, then went to Library/mail/mailbox/recovered messages and deleted the recovered messages. But I do not have any folder called "recovered messages" so can't pursue that fix. Any ideas?

I'm don't know about the new systems, but I remember that I set the % full to warn me. Your % might be set to 20% or something rather than 10% which is a preferable safety margin for many uses. I solved this start up disk problem by installing a 2 Tb internal drive and keeping my data files on external, raided, drives. A real show-stopper is when your 45 Tb external drive warns you that you're too close to OUT for comfort. And, Yes, I do keep it trash free.

Getting Message: "Startup Disk is Full" on a brand new 1TB Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for