Hello mac community! My startup disc is almost full and I need to make space. What sort of stuff gets stored as "other"? once i know this, I can make some space. many thanks susan

Hi
My mac air startup disc is almost full. What does mac store as "other"? this category is taking up more than half the space on the disc
many thanks susan

For more on "Other" and very helpful tips:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html
Hope this helps.
1. Empty Trash.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677
2. Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
    Select "Library" from the dropdown.
    Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
    Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Empty Trash. Restart.
3. Repair Disk
    Steps 1 through 7
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836

Similar Messages

I have a mac notebook and time capsule. I got a message that my startup disc is almost full. not sure where to go from here. if i delete files will they still be on the time capsule.

I have a Mac notebook and back up to time capsule. I Got a message that my statup disc is almost full and I need to delete files. Not sure which files it means and will i lose my files if they are saved on the time capsule.

Visit
The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on the hard drive. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
Alert TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.

Startup disc is almost full

A window pops up and says that my "startup disc is almost full". What does this mean and how can i fix it?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
See my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
Make sure your hard drive never becomes more than 85% full. That's an arbitrary number most have found to significantly degrade Mac OS X performance.
* Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Your startup disc is almost full - yet 101GB free !!!

I ran disc cleanup and got the message 'your startup disc is almost full' yet if I check Get Info for the drive I have...used = 48 GB, free = 101GB !!!
Any idea why I'm being told it's almost full.
PS: I have backup of two (2) 320GB LeCie external HDs

I don't know why it is saying that, but that utility is not really doing anything for you. All it does is is erase the bits that the OS has already declared "free."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1010.html
Are you running Adobe Photoshop? If you are, how big is the swap disk?

My iphone 5c storage is almost full and I need to delete some pictures to free up some space, I pay iCloud for extra storage but I'm afraid if I delete it off my phone that it will delete it from iCloud, is that true? I can't afford to lose these pictures

My iphone 5c storage is almost full and I need to delete some picture to free up some space. If I delete the pictures off of my phone, will they be deleted off of iCloud as well? I cant afford to lose these pictures.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083
Then take pics etc off iphone into a secure location on PC/Mac

My startup disc is almost full??

I am getting a message stating that my Start-up disc is almost full. I appear to have only 350 Mb available out 320Gb. I have no photos or videos on the device. What must I do?

You must move or delete files from your internal drive. Either Move them to an external drive or Move them to the trash then empty the trash.

Options now that Startup disc is almost full?

I have a Macbook Pro, running Mac OS X 10.7.4.
It just ran through its 3 year waranty period in January but not before having its entire back screen replaced as well as the 2 x 2Gb ram cards intergrated into the motherboard all due to a video issue. So all in all, seems like a new laptop aside from that there is 5 Gb left on the hard disc (out of 320.)
Still somewhat new to tech stuff, I have backed everything up to our 2 TB TIme Capsule. Additionally, I had an external drive which I backed everything up to again.
So, what can I do with this hard disc? I fear that it might soon just die off. Is a solid state hard drive an easy replacement? Should I just dump files off the hard disc since its nearly full and I have dual back ups?
A friend of mine mentioned something about NAS but the phone reception was tough.
PLease share some advice and wisdom. Thank you!

suggestion: install a larger hard drive if you feel that your hard drive is about to fail.
go to owc to see what size suits your needs. a 10 minute install if you're technically capable.
cloning your new hard drive is quite easy but a little time consuming. so expect to spend a minimum of one hour or more depending on how much data you wish to clone or transfer.
good luck.

Startup disc is almost full - warning

I'm getting this warning so I purchased and installed a 1 tb sata drive in bay 2. I thought that I would now have the additional space but continue to get the warning. I see the drive in the system profiler but apparently it doesn't automatically carry over. Reading through the forums I see that it's recommended to use the bay 1 drive for apps and 2 for media. How do I move my media files to the second drive if this is the case? Is there something else I'm missing? Help!!
Thanks,
Richard

How large is your system drive?
How much free space is reported?
Do you have at least two backup drives already?
Download and look through the pdf for SuperDuper $29 for backups and clone the system.
What type of files and media etc do you have?
And yes most people do use all four internal drive bays for system, data, editing, backup - but always have one or more external (and off line) backup drives.
And this assumes it is working properly, no freezes or crashes, and in good working order. If not, even more important to backup and repair. And for repairs, definitely invest in 3rd party utility (Alsoft, MicroMat, Prosoft, or something).
For now, I would just "clone" your original drive to the new 1TB.
You can use SuperDuper free for full copy; you can use Disk Utility - Restore also for making the copy. That way you know you have one good full backup.
I hope it is not Seagate, there are STILL problems with Seagate firmware with their drives.
You could just copy video, photo library, but don't delete anything until you know everything is working, and I would still want a 3rd drive.
System
Media
Backup #1
Backup #2
Clone means it is bootable. Test that it is. Boot from it. Insure it works properly. Pull the original for safe keeping.
The third drive could be backup system. Also useful to have. Before applying any updates, BACKUP your system and run disk repairs.
OWC MacSales has 640GB WD for $69. Great fast little drives. 1TB for $95 (Green) and up (RE3, Black, others). There are also 1.5 and 2TB WD models. So very affordable.

Getting a Message "startup disc is almost full"

What does that mean? Is this the main Hard Drive?
Explain to me (like I'm a first time computer user) what I need to do please.
Thank you

You can move some of your iPhoto pictures to a new library on an external drive, if you want to, and that should free up some space, too. To do that, follow these directions from iPhoto Help, substituting "copy" for "move":
Your iPhoto library is located in your Pictures folder. The library contains photos you have imported into your photo library and any albums, slideshows, books, calendars, or cards you’ve created using iPhoto.
WARNING: To avoid permanently deleting or corrupting your iPhoto library, do not attempt to alter the contents of this file. It is a good idea, however, to routinely back up your iPhoto library to a DVD or external hard disk so you have a copy in case your photos become lost or corrupted for any reason.
To move your iPhoto Library:
Quit iPhoto.
Move your iPhoto Library to a new location on your computer.
IMPORTANT: If you’ve created multiple photo libraries, be sure to move only the library currently displayed when iPhoto is open. If you want to move a photo library other than the one you’re currently working on, you first need to switch to it.
Open iPhoto.
Click Choose Library in the dialog that appears.
Navigate to where you moved the library and select it.
Click Open.
Now you can delete some of your photos from your original library, thus freeing up some much-needed space. Good luck!

When I turn on MacBook Pro it telling me that my start up disk is full and I need to delete files. How do I get to start up disc?

When I search a file called start up disc, nothing shows up. How do I delete files so when my computer starts up, I no longer get a message stating that my start up disc is full and that I need to delete some files?

There is a boot drive inside the computer and it's storage space is filled up.
You need to create a external storage drive and transfer some of your files off the internal boot drive.
TimeMachine doesn't work for this as it's just a rotating backup image of what's on your boot drive, it's not a storage drive for more space and to save things permanently.
So what you need to do is get three external drives from the office or computer store.
I suggest 3-4 separate drives at 1TB each (or more capacity if you really got a lot of stuff), USB 2 is currently fine, the newer USB 3's are more expensive but your Mac doesn't have USB 3 ports, so get the less expensive USB 2 drives and save some money. If you can get Firewire 800/USB combination drives, those would be a better choice as Firewire 800 is the fastest for most Mac's. Only the very new ones have Thunderbolt and the new drives for that are rare and expensive.
Make sure they are self powered drives with their own power supply, not port powered as those are a bit flaky as Apple can just determine the device is drawing too much current from the computer and turn it off.
Note: sometimes if your computer is so full, you might actually have to delete some files in order to be able to get it to function transferring files, so pick ones that you can get new copies again, like free iTunes podcasts or movies for instance.
TimeMachine Drive
The first drive you connect to the Mac is going to pop up a window to ask if you want to make this a "TimeMachine Drive" go ahead and allow it to do that, it's backing up everything on your internal boot drive, it's going to take a long time.
Once it's finished, disconnect this TimeMachine drive and label it as a "TimeMachine Drive"
Extra space /Storage drives
The second drive you connect is going to be your "extra storage drive" basically to free up space off the internal boot drive by transferring files to it.
Formatting:
You first need to format this drive, you use Disk Utility in the Applications> Utilities folder.
On the left will be the 'name of the drive' + "media" click that and then click the Partition tab
Now click 1 Partition, Option: GUID, format OS X Extended (Journaled), give it a name like "StorageOne" and click Apply.
Now click the Erase Tab and Security Option> Zero All Data and click Erase (use the same name) this will take a long time, like 2 hours per 1TB. It's going to check the drive for any errors and make sure it's working.
Note: If the drive fails to format, then perform the Zero All Data first, then visit the Partition tab.
Once the second drive is finished, then do the third drive in the same manner, this time naming it "StorageTwo"
Transferring Data off to the Extra Storage drive
Connect only StorageOne drive and visit your User/Movies folder, it's likely the biggest culprit of oversized files. Create a new folder on the StorageOne drive called "ExtraMovies" and transfer the contents of User/Movies to the "ExtraMovies" folder via drag and drop methods.
Confirm the files were transferred and then delete those movies by dragging them to your Trash can and selecting "Empty Trash" from the Finder menu (if you select Secure Empty Trash on large files it takes a really long time to finish as it's scrubbing the drive, likely unnecessary except for sensitive files)
If you have a large amount of User/Files elsewhere, you will have to search yourself and repeat the same steps to free up room on your internal boot drive.
Once you have made some free space, download this free program to help you visualize where all your space is being taken up.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/#download
Once you have completed moving files to the StorageOne drive, connect StorageTwo and copy the contents of StorageOne folders to StorageTwo drive. Both drives have to be connected of course.
Rule of thumb
Maintain TWO separate hardware copies of your User data at ALL TIMES
Because you need more room, thus the storage drives are for extra space. The TimeMachine drive is a backup of your internal boot drive and the second storage drive is a backup copy of the first storage drive. So that way your sticking with the rule of thumb, get it?
Don't connect TimeMachine while your transferring files, or formatting drives, you don't want it to "kick in" while your doing all this heavy work or transferring a large amount of files, I think it does so every hour, which you are going to taking quite some time to do all this work.
Once your all done making room and copying files to the Storage drives, disconnect them and label them and date them.
Reconnect TimeMachine drive
Then connect the TimeMachine drive and it will make a NEW backup of your now newer configuration on your boot drive and keep it updated every time you connect it.
Again, TimeMachine is NOT a storage drive for permanent keeping of data, it deletes old stuff as time progresses. So even though you can "go back in time" and recover a file you transferred then deleted off the your internal boot drive, it won't keep everything forever like a storage drive can.
Consider Cloning your boot drive.
TimeMachine drives can only restore, they are not bootable like a clone is, so a TimeMachine drive isn't a heck of a lot of help if your hard drive fails to boot the computer, so a "hold the option key bootable clone" made with third party software is a very useful as you get to use the computer just like it was before and can get online, grab files off the internal drive and so forth. Even erase and reverse cloning!
The trick with a clone is you make one and keep it disconnected, updating it from time to time. If a software update or install hoses your machine, you can option boot off the clone, grab the latest copy of your files and reverse clone the clone with the updated files back onto your OS X partition, reboot the computer and it's like nothing happened.
It's a advanced technique, you will have to learn a lot more perhaps before attempting it, but it's a lifesaver.
Cloning requires another separate external hard drive and free cloning software.
You can read more about it all here. Take your time, you have a lot to absorb.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

I recently bought 10gb of iCloud data for £10 totalling my date to 15gb but it's almost full and I need a new phone, is the only way to save all my 1300 pictures

Please may someone help me in regards to the above, I have a very old laptop and do not trust it for holding all my photos, is iCloud the best place to store them? & should I just bite the bullet and buy more data? New phone is needed soon, this one is 16gb I have just under 400 contacts & roughly 1450 photos & videos from the last 2 years. I don't really understand why if the phone is 16gb i only have 15gb on iCloud, I'm guessing that means I would only lose 1gb somewhere?
Sorry to sound like a total dummy but would really appreciate advice on this.
Many thanks

Import them from the camera roll to your computer and delete them off your device as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083. You can then put the photos in a folder and sync them back to your device by selecting it on the Photos tab of your iTunes sync settings. They will appear on you phone in the Photo Library album, which is not included in the iCloud backup (because they are already backed up on your computer), and thus won't take any of your iCloud storage.
Another approach of course would be to start backing up to your computer using iTunes instead of to iCloud.

My HD is almost full. I need to add space. Can I use an external HD to continue using my startup disc as it is?

My HD is almost full. I need to add space. Can I use an external HD to continue using my startup disc as it is?
I create music and have run out of space. the message says 'your startup disc is almost full', and i just thought maybe buying an external hard drive and using it as the startup disc or whatever would do the trick. Does anyone know? Thanks!

External hard drives are relatively inexpensive...see some of those on OWC, www.macsales.com
You can use a large external drive to provide additional space by simply saving material to that volume instead of the startup disk. You can also partition the external drive to use part for Time Machine backups, and another partition for extended space. Or a third partition for a clone of the boot system made by Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, both free downloads, so should the internal drive have problems you could always boot from the external partition.
All of that can be done from Disk Utility.
Keep in mind that Mac OS X gets very unhappy when there is less than 15% of the startup disk space free.

My start up disc is almost full. How can I get my data stored on my 2nd disc

I have an i Mac working with OS X 10.9.5 Processor: 2.93 GHz Intel Core i7. I have a solid state hard disc of 250 GB which is the start up disc. There is a conventional second hard disc of 2 TB. The way it is set up the 2nd disc is not being used. My start up disc is almost full. How to I change it so that my data is stored on my 2nd disc.

I am having the same problem Have devoted well over 10 hours to the destroyed WD Passport, memory and constant crashes of untold origin, and of course wasting time with the good ol' spinning wheel of death. Any fixes for memory, back up drives and crashes would be welcome. I am tired of these upgrades making my life worse. Once upon a time Apple cared and was not so awful in customer relations and quality of upgrades to the OS. Now, not so much. I am searching through the now more difficult to search through Discussions to find fixes for these problems but have not opened any that are satisfactory. Please will someone in the know, not so much an Apple shill cause they just blame the user, but actual Apple users and customers who have had these issues and can now share the knowledge. Please!

My MacBook air's startup disk is almost full, what do I do?

A message has been popping up that my startup disk is almost full and that I need to delete files. I've deleted items in my trash but I only have 8.66 GB available. I have gone through a lot of my files and when I go into my Macintosh hd it has those lines for what is taking up the most space and it is other. The blue audio says 3.48 GB the purple movies says 3.65 GB the orange (photos) says 780.5 MB the green (apps) says 4.29 GB and it says zero KB for back ups. So this other thing is taking up the most room how do I delete stuff from the other column. I would like to update my software but I need to free up space.

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. Type carefully and then press return. 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. Ignore any other messages that appear in the Terminal window.
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.

My start up disc is almost full. How do I make more room?

I keep getting this message that my Startuo disc is almost full. Please delete some files to make more room. I have deleted several files, but a few weeks later I get the same message again. Is there something else I should be doing or checking?
I own a MAC OS X version 10.5.8
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Please help.
Thanks

There is no magic bullet. You need to delete stuff off the startup drive.
The biggest hard drive space hogs are videos, images and music. The good news is that all of these can - and probably should - be moved to an external drive. So my advice would be to get yourself an external hard drive, connect it to your Macbook, format it correctly, move what you can to that drive, and the ERASE them off the startup.
Good luck.

Hello mac community! My startup disc is almost full and I need to make space. What sort of stuff gets stored as "other"? once i know this, I can make some space. many thanks susan

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