How to get early warning startup disk is full?

By the time OS X displays the startup disk full message, you computer is already useless. Is there a way to get this warning at 5GB free space?

Monitor it if you are using that sort of space. In answer to your question, no.
Barry

Similar Messages

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

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.

Erroneous Warning Startup Disk Almost Full

Infrequently I get these erroneous warnings "Your startup disk is almost full" when I know this is very false with the 250G hard drive only a third full. It happens on a PowerMac G5 dual 2.7GHz 2.25G 250G and a PowerBook G4 1.7GHz 1G 80G, both running OS 10.4.11. But in my long searches on the web including Apple Support and Forums I see it also happens to many running OS 10.5.
In this condition, the machine is all but frozen. Applications remain running but won't accept any entry which would involve hard drive use, and if they require hard drive use to quit, they won't quit. Force Quit may or may not work, sometimes requiring hard shutdown. I can't save any open document to the HD or even to my iDisk which also then erroneously shows "Disk Full" (actually 90% empty) (but I can save it to a flash drive). Info on startup disk during this condition shows full with a small number of megabytes free.
I don't download music or image files which could fill the hard drive. My applications are from highly dependable companies and are not going to suddenly fill the HD with hundreds of gigs of temp files.
I am certain that the hard drive is not full. I am certain that the OS's seeing and reporting that the hard drive is full is in error. Some crazy app filling it with temp files could not possibly also do the same to an iDisk.
Simple Restart always solves the problem, info on the HD reports again correctly that the hard drive is a third full and 2/3rds empty. And it runs fine until the next time it happens. Usually I simply resume the app I was using, which has never yet caused the problem to recur.
All the hundreds of expert replies to this topic I've ever found in Apple and elsewhere on the web say the HD is actually full, either that they've actually filled it w/ music or images, or some app suddenly has generated 200GB of temp files. For some questioners those are the answer. But for many of us they're not the answer at all, the experts are not reading & understanding our questions. We're getting the warning when our HD's cannot possibly be anywhere near full.
Again- we're getting this erroneous warning, all but hanging our machines, when the hard drive cannot possibly be full. I KNOW the report that the hard drive is full is WRONG. The report that the HD is full has to be an OS X error.
Possible clues: One time, the G5 gave the warning within a few minutes after every repeated restart; I Repaired Permissions, and it quit the repeated warnings-- whether repairing permissions fixed it I don't know. Both of these machines must have Classic running almost all the time: the G5 Classic is running only Pagemaker, and the PowerBook Classic is running only Dynodex.
Would someone please address this real problem?
Thanks!!

Hi Packwood,
There must be a solution to your problem.
Are you using FileVault perchance?
Tough to recommend anything when I'm certain you've tried many things so far, and are frustrated without a cure.
Have you tried making a new User to test?
At this point I think you should get Applejack...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 5 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files!
Disconnect the USB cable from any UPS so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.

"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.

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 have a IMac 10.7.4 with startup disk is full problems

I have a IMac 10.7.4 with 1TB of space I'm getting that my startup disk is full when i only using about 60 gigs any ideas for me

First step would be to empty the caches on the computer. To do this:
1. Click on the Finder
2. Click on 'Go' in menu bar across the top of the screen.
3. Click on 'Go to Folder'
4. In the box that appears type '~/Library' (without the ' apostrophes)
5. A list with a lot of folders should appear. Locate the 'Caches' folder and open it.
6. Drag everything in this 'Cache' folder to the Trash.
7. Empty the Trash.
8. Restart the computer.
Still getting the same message?
Keep us posted!

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!

When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

When starting the computer, I get a grey screen and following status: your startup disk is full. How can I still enter (in order to free-up some space)?

Simple way to make HDD free space is delete files you don't need anymore.
Or get bigger drive and external HDD case, then:
1) install bigger HDD in external drive case.
2) connect external drive and format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is internal HDD, target drive is external one).
4) install external bigger drive into your Macbook Pro.
In the cace if your're using Mac Pro:
1) get bigger HDD and install it in drive bay of Mac Pro.
2) format and mount it with Disk Utility.
3) make clone with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!(source drive is old HDD, target drive is new one).
4) Select boot drive to new bigger one.

HT1338 How do I make more room on my startup disc? I keep getting a warning that it is full.

How do I make more room on my startup disc? I keep getting a warning that it's full.

Bernie007 wrote:
How do I make more room on my startup disc? I keep getting a warning that it's full.
Try downloading omnidiscsweeper
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/
and check to see that are no large folders of files that you do not know about on your computer. Normally it will be Pics, Music or Movies.
If everyfile is required then you may well have to physically back a lot of it up to an external drive. You need a minimum of 15% free disc space to operate at a reasonable rate.
Pete

I got my first macbook air about a year ago. awhile ago i started getting these notifications saying "your startup disk is almost full" or "your startup disk is full". i was wondering how to get more space on my startup disk, if that is possible?

i got my first macbook air about a year ago. awhile ago i started getting these notifications saying "your startup disk is almost full" or "your startup disk is full". i was wondering how to get more space on my startup disk, if that is possible?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.

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.

How do I clean my startup disk?

I keep getting an error msg that my startup disk is full? I've emptied the trash, still no luck?

If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Then empty the Finder Trash again and 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 free 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 on this page 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.

How can I do an startup disk with DiskWarriori included?

How can I do an startup disk with DiskWarrior included?
I want to do it with System 9.2.2. for those days that apperas an ? in the disk... buf!
I did one but the Mac didn't recognize it...
Thanks

xjulia...
Remember what I said earlier? ""The tricky parts... Then install your wanted version of Mac OS 9""...
Install is a key word here.
Launch your latest Mac OS 9 CD and run the Installer targeting the mounted image. I prefer to do a minimum universal install from within the installer. Uncheck items of no use. If your CD is an older version of Mac OS 9, run the following version of an updater. Same can be done to update your utilities so long as there is a updater available for the utility.
<hr width="300">
Copying an already installed System Folder, is a bit to be desired, as you have tons of manual trashing (fixing, weeding, etc.) to do.
<--OR-->
Bootable CDs normally contain a copy protected System Folder that is equivalent to fooling around with mother nature. It unfortunately leaves you with many CD cake boxes of coasters in the process.
<hr width="300">
By the way— A mounted image gets refreshed in a funny way. Drag the mounted image to the trash and "chug-chug". Click on the [your named].img file and a fresh image gets mounted. Just keep an eye on both as you get the feel.
...Ron

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

How to get early warning startup disk is full?

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