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.

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Where I can find the FireFox HTML Document in order to delete files.

Where I can find the FireFox HTML Document in order to delete files.

''NACCACHE [[#answer-678877|said]]''
<blockquote>
''jscher2000 [[#answer-678779|said]]''
<blockquote>
Hi NACCACHE, when you make Firefox your default browser, Windows will display the document type for certain files (especially .html files) as "Firefox HTML Document". If you switch your default browser to a different browser, such as Internet Explorer, the description will change.
Are you having a problem with the description appearing with documents that are not normally of the type that display in a web browser?
</blockquote>
I changed now to Firefox default browser...now where I can find the Firefox HTM Document in order to delete a file.
yahOO.htm
Track your Package from FedEx Span...
</blockquote>
I took PrintScreen for the said files how I can send it to you?

Yosemite has ruined performance of my 3-year-old iMac with freezes, application shutdowns and more. What can I do?

Since installing Yosemite my iMac frequently freezes, particularly when I have multiple windows open/apps running. I've never had this problem before. All my apps are installed on a solid-state drive and all documents, etc. on a separate drive, so I'm accustomed to fast performance. Most problems seem to occur with Microsoft Office (Word and Entourage) and Safari, but that's what I use most heavily, so no surprise. I have always been able to keep a lot of apps/windows open on desktop without performance problems, until now. Yosemite is leaving me stranded. (I upgraded to Yosemite because a couple of the newest apps I use on my two Macs and iPhone require Yosemite.) Any advice?

When you have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.
Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

My 5-year old iMac is freezing up and will not reboot unless it is turned off for an hour or so. What is going on?

After some heavy lifting ( backing up or working in several applications) the system will slow down to a crawl and then freeze. A hard shutdown and restart will usually not reboot it. I typically get a white screen with a floder with a ? mark on it, a circle with a line through it, an Apple logo with a spinning wheel for many hours (I let it go overnight once to no avail), or a simple white screen.   The disk checks out fine with Drive Genius and disk usility, from both the hard disk (when I can get it running) and from the Disk utilite and Drive Genius Disks.    I have erased (zeroed out) the disk and reinstalled Snow Leopard several times with all updates. Reparied permissions successfully. It runs swimmingly until I start loading up files and try to use them or tao back up to Time Machine on a Time Capsule.   It will then repeat the whole scenario.   Often, If I leave it shut down for an hour or two, or overnight, it will boot fine, even after all of the prior white screens.
I have taken it to the Genius Bar a coupole of times, and they have done a system reinstall and analysis to no avail.   Everything looks fine. Infact, ast time it had rested and while it did not boot before I left, it did fine there.
The only devices connected are an ethernet cable, bluetooth mouse, and keyboard. What's up?
I think this is a hardware not a software issue.

    BankerDad, let's see if we can change this device's behavior. Is there any physical or liquid damage on that device? Connect it to a charger to see if the charging battery icon populates on the screen. Keep us posted.
LasinaH_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

I'm trying to migrate data from an old Powerbook G4 to a Macbook running 10.8 - new laptop can't find the target disk

Can anyone help me get a new(er) Macbook that's running Mountain Lion migrate data from an old PowerBook G4 running 10.4.x?
I've restarted the G4 holding down "T" and have the Firewire icon floating around its screen, started Migration Assistant on the Macbook, telling it to get data from a Time Machine back up or other disk, have Firewire cable connected to both laptops, continue and the Macbook is just endlessly "Looking for Other Computers"....
Any ideas?
Anyone?

Additionally, When I have the two laptops connected via Firewire, I do see the disk from which I'm trying to migrate data and can copy files, etc.
Not sure if this is helpful or not but thought I'd throw it out there.

My 6 year old iMac is freezing frequently and I have random weird display spots - any suggestions?

I'm having issues with my desktop Mac - I took it to apple and they ran a diagnostic and said it was fine. The screen has frequently appearing inconsistencies like weird little sections of random colors and now the whole thing is freezing frequently. I have approx 60 gb free and I'm running 10.7.3 with no odd software or especially labor intensive programs other than iPhoto.
Any ideas are more than welcome!

Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

I have a new ipad and want to restore my old..it asks for my ipad password. How do I find the ipad password?

I have a new ipad and want to restore my old..it asks for my ipad password.
How do I find the ipad password?

What password are you refering to? A passcode lock on the ipad itself or the password for your apple id?
If its a pascode lock, then:
If You Are Locked Out Or Have Forgotten Your Passcode
iTunes 10 for Mac- Update and restore software on iPod, iPhone, or iPad
iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Wrong passcode results in red disabled screen
iOS- Understanding passcodes
If its your apple id, then:
My Apple ID
https://appleid.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/

3 year old iMac running very slow, freezing all the time. Advice?

My three year old iMac - 2.4Ghz processor, 2GB RAM, running Lion - is becoming almost totally useless. For many months it has been very slow, with multiple freezes, and then "force quits" on iPhoto and other applications.
First, I tried to free up some space - i now have about 44GB free. Then I ran disk utility etc, Then I ugraded to Lion.
But still I'm getting the same problems. Any suggestions?

It sounds like your problems are more serious than a 'hardware upgrade' issue. My late 2008 MacBook 2.4GHz with 2GB RAM runs applications (and iPhoto) fine. In addition I have run OS X operating systems with little more than 5GB free hard drive space with no issue (being able to run advanced applications like Photoshop).
My advice- if you have simply upgraded to Lion keeping all your systems settings and files intact then you may want to perform a 'clean install', you'll backup your important data/files in order to transfer them back again into Lion. You could even create a Time Machine Backup and use this to move only your data and applications back into your clean install of OS X Lion.

Four-year-old iMac and Mountain Lion

My wife has a four-year-old iMac that has been horrendously slow for the last couple of years. This has been true with nearly all the programs, but especially Word for Mac and Outlook (both part of Microsoft Office for Mac) -- even when only three or four programs are open at a time. Click Outlook, for example, and you can wait a minute and half for it to open while it checks identities.
I just upgraded the machine to Mountain Lion hoping that might solve some problems but the situation is even worse now. She clicked on Message last night as I was standing there and I finally gave up waiting and walked away. Frankly, the speed of the machine under both Lion and now, worse, Mountain Lion is driving us crazy.
So, what to do?
Should I be doing some sort of in-depth analysis of the the current machine? (A little background: three months after buying it, it had a problem and Apple Service ended up replacing the screen and the motherboard.)
Or should I just buy a new iMac and forget about this machine ever being fast enough?
Here are the specs on the current iMac:
Model Name:                    iMac
Model Identifier:              iMac8,1
Processor Name:              Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:              3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors:   1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache:                           6 MB
Memory:                            4 GB
Bus Speed:                         1.07 GHz
Thank you for any advice.
Don

Your computer is on the very low end of systems which are supported by Mountain Lion. Anything newer than Snow Leopard will likely hurt performance rather than help it.
When your computer is freezing up, it is probably loading data from the disk into RAM. You can't put any more RAM into the machine, but you can have the hard drive upgraded to an SSD. That's quite a bit of money to pour into a five-year-old machine, but it's a lot cheaper than getting a new computer.
One other option is to back up your files, wipe everything, and start over. Install the applications one at a time until things start to slow down. You may have an application that is sitting in the background and using up system resources.

Flash Player won't start on a 4 year old iMac with Maverick

L.S.
I switched to Maverick on my 4 year old iMac. At first the program Maverick slowed down te activity speed. After changing datafiles to an external drive it works oké now. No problems untill now.
Recent I needed Adobe Flash Player, which is downloaded in the most recent version on my iMac, for starting a program for showing results. The program doesn't start, I had to download the most recent version of Adobe Flash Player.
No result - Testing - downloading - removing cookies - restarting - downloading and installing again, etc.
Testing the Flash Player on YouTube the problem results in the same problem.
The software on my iMac is up to date.
Has anybody the solution to solve this ?
Thank you,
FamB

Flash Player has to be downloaded, installed and allowed .
1. System Preferences > Flash Player > Advanced > Delete All
     Press the "Delete All" button
     Install Adobe Flash Player.
    http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
    Follow the prompts.   Quit Safari.
    Restart computer. Relaunch Safari.
2. Allow Plug-ins
    Safari > Preferences > Security
    Internet Plug-ins > "Allow plug-ins"
    Enable it.
    Press " Manage Website Settings" button for more options.

My four year old iMac is running much slower than when it was new. Any suggestions on cleaning out the cob webs?

My four year old iMac is running much slower than when it was new. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to "clean it up" and get it running like it used to?

What year, screen size, CPU speed and amount of RAM installed?
To find out info about your system,
Click on the Apple symbol in the upper left of the OS X main menu bar. A drop down menu appears.
Click About this Mac. A smaller popup window appears. This gives you basic info like what version of OS X your iMac is running, the speed of your iMac's CPU and how much RAM is installed.
Click on the button that says More Info. A larger window appears giving you a complete overview of your iMac's hardware specs.
Highlight all of this info and copy/paste all of this into another reply to this post, editing out your iMac's serial number before actually posting the reply.
This will tell us everything about your iMac so we may begin to help with your iMac issues.
How full is your Mac's hard drive?
Locate your iMac's hard drive icon on the OS X desktop. Click the icon once, then use the keyboard key combination Command-I. This will give you additonal info about your iMac's internal hard drive.
Post this info in your reply here, also.
Here are some general tips to keep your Mac's hard drive trim and slim as possible
You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!
With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.
If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your Mac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.
STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
To find other large files, download an app called Omni Disk Sweeper.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Just purchase new iMac and migrated. I want to strip my 2 year old iMac of personal files and photos and take to my office. Is there a simple method? Thx

Just purchase new iMac and migrated. I want to strip my 2 year old iMac of personal files and photos and take to my office. Is there a simple method? Thx

The simplest way, is to erase the drive and reinstall the OS X.
Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard: How to Erase and Install
Other than that, you will have to trash all your User files, delete all the photos from within iPhoto and then empty the trash.

What are the best ways to keep my 4 year old iMac going?

I want to put off having to buy a new desktop iMac as long as possible so, while I'm using my 4+ years old iMac, what are the things I should (or should NOT) do to look after it? I know that temperature and humidity must be avoided but here in England (UK) it rarely gets too hot, so what else I should be aware of? Any advice would be much appreciated.

See:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
How to Speed up Macs, ,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X,
Five Mac maintenance myths and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X for information.

How do I erase ALL data on my 8 year old iMac 10.6.8?

I'd like to erase ALL data on my 8 year old iMac 10.6.8 before hauling it off to electornics recycling. I have the original Snow Leopard start up disc but need help in it's use for this purpose. Any help would be appreciated. Richard

Sorry RK I was having trouble posting the pertinent Snow Leopard article earlier, but looks like the OP got there without it.
Humm... it still won't let me post it.

We have a 4 year old iMac 24 inch. My hard drive died and we have a new hard drive now, but all that the fixit shop put on it was the Snow Leopard OS; can I ask Apple for a download of our other many software programs to reload them? Does it cost to do

We have a 4 year old iMac 24 inch. The hard drive died and we had a new hard drive installed. They only installed the Snow Leopard OS on it, and there were many software programs that came with the iMac originally.. now missing. Does anyone know whether Apple will resupply these? I do have an Apple installation disc but have upgraded from the original Leopard to Snow Leopard... so the OS is not quite the same. Ideas? Thanks!

No bootable bakup/clone or Time Machine backup? No initial install discs? If no to both of those, call 1-800-MY-APPLE and request replacement discs for that machine. They're available for a nominal S&H charge.

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?

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