MacBook Pro running OS X Lion startup disk is full.

I am running OS X Lion on my startup disk is full. I checked my strorage in the about this mac window. 49.72GB of my HD space is taken up by Other. Also in Disk Utility under the partiton almost the entire rectangle is light blue. I am worried that my MacBook is to old to run the software. I use my machine to run Adobe CS4. The error turns up when I run photoshop so I am unable to run the program at all. Please Help!

Here is the link which was screwed up by the iCloud/Mobile Me transition.
1 this is the index go to 30 http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
This worked for me from a google search http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/30.html
http://Pondini.org/TM/30.html

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My MacBook Pro Won't Start-The Startup disk is full and I get a white screen

When I turn it on the log in screen appears and also a message saying "Startup disk full,please delete some files" , so I log in and it just takes me to a white screen,I've tried going to the disk utility by doing Command+R when turing it on ,and I repaired Macintish HD and after that it said "Macintish HD volume is OK".Thanks for the help

1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677
3. 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.
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
   System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

MacBook Pro running updates won't startup, even in Safe Mode

I ran some software updates on my MacBook Pro running Lion and when it restarts it has a striped screen and says 'You need to restart your computer.' It won't even allow me to restart in Safe Mode. Any ideas?

Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.

I updated my macbook air software and somehow my startup disk is full.

I have about 50Gigs of "other". How do I fix this. The "other" are not things that belong to me as I do not store anything on my macbook... As a result I keep getting "startup disk full" error messages and I cannot download the newest update or the new iTunes to sync my mini. Thanks!

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 free on the startup volume for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data.
Use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can 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.
Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.
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.
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.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then drag or copy — do not type — into the Terminal window:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Press return. 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.
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 you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

My MacBook Air keeps alerting that the startup disk is full and I've deleted applications, iTunes and MobileSync backups. What else??

I don't consider myself an advanced Mac user but I'm really trying to use my Macbook Air much more than I do... but the biggest hurdle for me is that it's been alerting me that the startup disk has been full for several months now no matter what I do. I'm on 10.9.1 OSX and can't even update to the newer version because I'm always out of space. I have 4GIGs of memory and a 60GB SSD of which 52GB are in use. Using OmniDisk Sweeper, I see I have 14.6 GB in Library of which 8.1 GB is Mail and 5GB is Application Support (and I have nearly 480 MB in Caches and 191 in Containers, 131MB in Messages). As for the rest, I've deleted my iTunes content multiple times but my iTunes library STILL says 1.7GBs in Music. I also have 672MB in Movies which I moved to an external drive and trashed so I'm not sure what still exists here. I only have 2 movie files and I deleted them both! I also have 16.9 MB in hob, whatever that is.
I have 32.8 MB in Logs, 19.8 in Safari, 7.9 MB in Calendars, 5.6MB in Google, 4.3MB in Preferences (!!), and 1.6MB in GameKit (not sure what this is), 1.1MB in KeyChains.
I'm just not sure what's going on. I have everything backed up via SuperDuper on a huge external drive and when I delete on my Mac, it doesn't seem to "take." Is is syncing that's the problem? Are my iTunes music files from my iPhone reinstalling back on the Mac as are all my photos and movies? I don't have that checked in iTunes so that shouldn't be happening either.
Again, I'm not an advanced user so maybe I'm not completing a final step to make sure it doesn't sync with my other devices (I also have an iPad mini). I like to get messages on my Macbook Air when I'm not near my phone but if it means I have 131MB in Messages that I can't pare down, I'd rather not. I see no way to reduce the Messages file so that it's not so large. I definitely want to get a handle on this before I even consider upgrading to a Macbook with more RAM and a bigger hard drive.
Final thoughts: Should I delete my mail accounts and just check mail on the web? Can I delete most of the files in Application Support or leave them alone? What's the difference between the MobileSync files and the MSYNC files?
Thanks in advance for 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

Ok so my MacBook Pro has begun saying the startup disc is full after importing photos, so I deleted done and the message went away. now my computer won't go passed the login page it gets stuck after I login and goes to a grey screen. Can anyone help?

Startup disc full

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

My macbook keeps telling me that the startup disk is full.

I have deleted everything on my computer except for my music and I don't see how it could possibly be full. It won't let me download anything. I just bought a movie on Itunes and i can't download it. What do I do?

Use OmniDiskSweeper to see what's taking up space: http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/
This may also provide some additional ideas on saving space: http://thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

I have screwed up a bunch of settings etc. on macbook pro running preinstalled lion. I think I should is to wipe the computer and reinstall to start over again. I will loose nothing of importance except a few passwords. Is this wise? How do I do it?

I have screwed up a bunch of settings, folders, photos, etc on my macbook pro running factory installed Lion. To get everything straightened out, I was thinking I should do a delete and reinstall and just start over like it was a brand new computer. I will only loose some usermane and password info and my history and cookies. There is nothing else on the computer that is not on another device somewhere. Does this sound like the right thing to do? I cannot seem to find ways to correct the problems indivdually, though I am sure they are there. If so, how do I do it? My computer did not come with any type of disc, I do not believe. Thanks in advance for anyone's help!

Yes, that sounds reasonable.
Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the left side list.
      Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on the Security button
        and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on the Erase button and wait until the process
      has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Have a macbook pro running osx lion, connected a kindle fire using micro usb to transfer pictures and the disk icon won't show up on the desktop. When I ran disk utilities the kindle does show up there. Any thoughts as to why it's not recognizing?

Have a macbook pro running osx lion. Connected a Kindle Fire using micro usb and the disk icon doesn't show up on the desktop. Also sometimes get a message sayiing computer doesn't recognize device. When I opened disk utilities the Kindle disk does show up there. What am I missing?

cashworth wrote:
Kindle is connected directly, not thru a hub. Also called Amazon Kindle support, tech was baffled when I told her I was using a Mac. She said, "I'm not really familiar with apple products."
Precisely why it's not an iPad, and why it doesn't cost very much. An Apple rep would tell you how to connect an iPad to every computer.
Go here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=sv_kinh_9?ie=UTF8&nodeId =200127470

Can someone please help, I have a dvd disk containing lecture videos, on a Windows pc it works fine, and the disk opens to the dvd menu. However on my macbook pro running Mountain Lion, it opens as a data disk, with video and audio in two seprate files??

Can someone please help, I have a dvd disk containing lecture videos, on a Windows pc it works fine, and the disk opens to the dvd menu. However on my macbook pro running Mountain Lion, it opens as a data disk, with video and audio in two seprate files??

You may need a 3rd party application to view the DVD in a wWindows format such as
http://flip4mac-3.en.softonic.com/mac
https://www.macupdate.com/app/iphone/5758/vlc-media-player

What is the best application to optimize my Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion???

What is the best application to optimize my Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion???

Kappy's Personal Suggestions About OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utility is: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior for defragmentation of older drives, disk repair, disk scans, formatting, partitioning, disk copy, and benchmarking.
Four outstanding sources of information on Mac maintenance are:
1. OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
2. Mac maintenance Quick Assist
3. Maintaining Mac OS X
4. Mac Maintenance Guide
Periodic Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) See Mac OS X- About background maintenance tasks. If you are running Leopard or later these tasks are run automatically, so there is no need to use any third-party software to force running these tasks.
If you are using a pre-Leopard version of OS X, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced after Tiger. (These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion and should not be installed.)
Defragmentation
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive except when trying to install Boot Camp on a fragmented drive. But you don't need to buy third-party software. All you need is a spare external hard drive and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Cheap and Easy Defragmentation
You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive. You will use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the backup and to restore it.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the
       external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not depressed or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the upward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the
       mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the
       drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is
       failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be
       reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the
       DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the
       drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
       (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
       GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait
       until the process has completed.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not selected or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
Malware Protection
As for malware protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. Starting with Lion Apple has included built-in malware protection that is automatically updated as necessary.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection:
1. Mac Malware Guide.
2. Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware
3. Macintosh Virus Guide
For general anti-virus protection I recommend only using ClamXav, but it is not necessary if you are keeping your computer's operating system software up to date. You should avoid any other third-party software advertised as providing anti-malware/virus protection. They are not required and could cause the performance of your computer to drop.
Cache Clearing
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache files can cause slowness, kernel panics, and other issues. Although this is not a frequent nor a recurring problem, when it does happen there are tools such as those above to fix the problem.
For emergency cleaning install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. (AppleJack works with Snow Leopard or earlier.)
Installing System Updates or Upgrades
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Backup and Restore
Having a backup and restore strategy is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your computer. Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Deja Vu
3. SuperDuper!
4. Synk Pro
5. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance and backup and restore.
Always have a current backup before performing any system updates or upgrades.
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity or 20 GBs, whichever is greater, as free space. Avoid installing utilities that rely on Haxies, SIMBL, or that alter the OS appearance, add features you will rarely if ever need, etc. The more extras you install the greater the probability of having problems. If you install software be sure you know how to uninstall it. Avoid installing multiple new software at the same time. Install one at a time and use it for a while to be sure it's compatible.
Additional suggestions will be found in:
1. Mac OS X speed FAQ
2. Speeding up Macs
3. Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
4. Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up
5. Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines
6. Five Mac maintenance myths
7. How to Speed up Macs
8. Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.

My macbook pro running lion will not boot . it stays on the grey page with the cog spinning. I have tried all methods of booting to no avail. I have removed the bottom and taken out the battery and the ram . will this affect my applecare warranty.

my macbook pro running lion will not boot . it stays on the grey page with the cog spinning. I have tried all methods of booting to no avail. I have removed the bottom and taken out the battery and the ram . will this affect my applecare warranty. I had to try myself as I'm overseas for two months and nowhere near any sort of help .

there was a recent software update that seemed to screw HDV up. Do some searching here over the last month or 2 and you'll find a bunch of posts and some possible solutions.
Worst case scenario, do as Shane suggests. But might I suggest you take a look at the user tips section of the forum. there are some great tips on how to prevent these sorts of problems by cloning your startup drive, etc.

I have a MacBook Pro running Lion. I need to use Lion to run my Dragon. I would like to partition my drive to use Maverick for everything but the dictation software. I'm a new pie to apple

I have a MacBook Pro running Lion. I need to use Lion to run my Dragon. I would like to partition my drive to use Mavericks for everything but the dictation software. I'm a newbie to apple

To resize the drive do the following:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.

Keep downloading Firefox 6.0.2 for Mac (as prompted) to my new Macbook Pro, running Lion (OS 10.7.1) and it won't open and install. WTF?

I have Firefox version 3.6.22 (Mac) & keep downloading Firefox 6.0.2 for Mac (as prompted) to my new Macbook Pro, running Lion (OS 10.7.1) and it won't open and install. WTF?

something similar has been happening to me for a a couple weeks (even before the most recent update, but now is definitely worse) on my 2010 MacBook Air. Firefox freezes upon startup, and then freezes maybe every twenty minutes or so when I'm actively using it, staying frozen for at least a minute or two. it drives me crazy.

Virtual machine of Lion OSx 10.7 server on my MacBook Pro running Lion 10.7?

I'd like to create a better disaster recovery plan. My thought was to create a virtual machine of Lion OSx 10.7 server on my MacBook Pro running 10.7. Is that even possible?

Disasters for you primary tends to take down the disk. That would kill your VM 10.7 Server fail-over.
Yes, you can VM "server", but I advise using CarbonCopyClone to keep a copy of the main disk but on an external drive, two separate external drives if you can afford it. CCC will clone the Recovery Partition, and the odds of all three drives failing at the same time are very low. Just keep the clones current by backing up at least once a week, if not once a day. You can rotate one of the clones to a freind's house for better protection.

MacBook Pro running OS X Lion startup disk is full.

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