Message saying startup disc nearly full.

I am running Lion and my software is up to date. I am getting a message saying that the Start up disc is nearlly full. How do I remove items from this to make things run smooth

Empty the Trash.
Copy files off the main hard drive onto another drive, or burn them to an optical disc if your computer can do that.
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html

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HT3680 I get the message 'your startup disc us full' at random time point I'm trying to import photos to iPhoto and get'iPhoto cannot import your photos because there is not enough free space on the volume containing your iPhoto library'.

I get the message 'your startup disc us full' at random time points. I'm trying to import photos to iPhoto and get'iPhoto cannot import your photos because there is not enough free space on the volume containing your iPhoto library'. This is a new Macbook Pro and all my files were transferred from my old Macbook.

What size internal drive do you have and how much of it is used?

I can not download movies on Apple TV, message says the disc is full. How do I clear the hard drive?

I can not download movies to Apple TV, error message halts download and says "disc is full". How do I clear the disc/hard drive for apple tv?

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Newly installed snow leopard 10.6.6 says startup disc is full - help please

A month ago, I installed snow leopard 10.6.6 to my MacBook Pro. Today, when I tried to do software updates, I got a message that says my start up disc is full and it can't install them.
My hardrive has only 856 mg remaining out of 249.72 capacity so it is, indeed, full!
I have deleted any and all files I no longer use and have moved others to an external hard drive.
I ran disc utility and the HD was verified as all okay
I restarted with shift key
I cleaned out my iMail boxes.
And, I cannot find anything on the internet about how to free up space on my start up disc.
What have I not done that I am missing? Oh, I also upgraded to iLife '11 at the same time. Is it possible that I have two sets of something that needs to be trashed because it is taking up an exorbitant amount of space?
Any help anyone can give me about clearing space on my start up disc would be most appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Glenn

Old Accounts would usually show up in the System Preferences/Accounts window. I don't know if you've ever done an Archive and Install, but it could leave some files from older installions on your drive.
Without knowing how many systems you've installed or upgraded from, it's hard to say what might have been left around on your system.
I'd run one of the programs and see if there are any large folder duplicates or anything else that might be laying around.
You haven't said how much space you expect to find... In other words, how large is your music library, photo library, documents folder, etc?

Error message says startup disk is full but I have 611 GB available on HD?

Keep getting message that the startup disk is full. Checked and have 611GB available on the HD. Help!

"...When I look at the get info screen it says 24mb left..."
What did you do a get info on?

Getting message saying hard drive nearly full

I've started getting a message when I boot up "your start up disk is almost full please remove some programs"
This I find hard to beleive as I have very little on my hard disk, I use an external My Book & other usb sticks to store most things including photos , the only things I have stored on the hard drive
any advice please ,
I've only started getting this message the last few days, and since I had a problem with my WD 1T external drive and time machine backup (time machine is supposed to be backing up to the WD external drive

See Where did my Disk Space go?

When trying to log into my MacBook, the message 'your startup disc is full' appears, then I log in

How can I clear space when no icons appear after I log in to my MacBook?

What size internal drive do you have and how much of it is used?

After upgrading to mountain lion i keep getting an error message saying my startup disc is full. it shouldnt be full because there is barely anything on there and i was running windows with bootcamp prior to this with no issues

after upgrading to mountain lion i keep getting an error message saying my startup disc is full. it shouldnt be full because there is barely anything on there and i was running windows with bootcamp prior to this with no issues. my computer now freezes and programs close randomly. The usual command for opening windows with bootcamp doesnt work. once in restarted my computer after it froze and it rebooted in windows automatically. i really just want to know if there is a way to take the upgrade off my laptop because it is very annoying.

Hi Memalyn
Essentially, the bare issue is that you have a 500GB hard drive with only 10GB free. That is not sufficient to run the system properly. The two options you have are to move/remove files to another location, or to install a larger hard drive (eg 2TB). Drive space has nothing to do with SMC firmware, and usually large media files are to blame.
My first recommendation is this: download and run the free OmniDiskSweeper. This will identify the exact size of all your folders - you can drill down into the subfolders and figure out where your largest culprits are. For example, you might find that your Pictures folder contains both an iPhoto Library and copies that you've brought in from a camera but are outside the iPhoto Library structure. Or perhaps you have a lot of purchased video content in iTunes.
If you find files that you KNOW you do not need, you can delete them. Don't delete them just because you have a backup, since if the backup fails, you will lose all your copies.
Don't worry about "cleaners" for now - they don't save much space and can actually cause problems. Deal with the large file situation first and see how you get on.
Let us know what you find out, and if you manage to get your space back.
Matt

Following a message saying that my Startup disc was full and advising me to delete some files, I deleted my trash but then apps started to fail. When I tried to log on again, all I got was a blank screen and a cursor. I am a Mac Book Pro virgin, help

Following a message saying that my Startup disc was full and advising me to delete some files, I deleted my trash but then apps started to fail. When I tried to log on again, all I got was a blank screen and a cursor, so I am unable to delete any more files. I am a Mac Book Pro virgin, help

How much free space do you actually have? Go to the Apple menu and select About This Mac... More Info... and click on the Storage tab. You should see something like this...
This will show you how much free space you have and what's taking up all the space on your hard drive. You may need to backup and trash some seldom used files, applications, etc. You have to drag them into the Trash and empty the trash to regain the space. A general rule of thumb is that you should have about 15% of your hard drive storage free.
Good luck,
Clinton

In attempting to install recommended software updates I get a message saying my startup disc is full. I have an Intel-based desktop with 1GB memory. What can I safely remove?

In attempting to install recommended software updates I get a message that my startup disc is full. I have an iMac (intel-based) with 1GB memory. I suspect my iTunes library is using up much of the space (I have no movies installed and have already copied most of my photos to a DVD to free up space). If I follow the instructions to move my iTunes library to an external HD (can I use a flash drive?) will I have enough working memory to plug it back in for use when I want to access the library?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Moving libraries off the boot disk while doable is not very viable. It creates many new problems in backing up your data, as now you have more than one source to backup. See my backup FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
My suggestion is to get at least two copies of all your essential data in one manner or another, and get a larger boot hard drive to replace what you currently use to be able to consolidate your libraries.
As for cleaning space, see my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

What do I need to do when I receive the message ". . . your startup disc is full, you need to make some room by deleting some files"

I hope I'm in the right place since I was sort of redirected here Recently I have been receiving the message that my startup disc is full and that I need to make room by deleting files. At first I received the message when I left my computer unattended with my virtual machine on, using VMWare Fusion to run Windows. Recently though, I got the message when I left my computer unattended for about 6 hours without the virtual machine running. As an aside, I get extremely nervous when anything freezes VMWare because it is usually a nightmare to get back into Windows if I can at all without calling Tech Support. This new message however, appeared without the virtual machine active, so I was relieved that VMWare most likely was not the cause. After reading a number of Tech Support articles and Community discussion questions and answers, I started wondering if iTunes or the SMC firmware or a combination thereof may be causing the problems. Mind you I know nothing about the SMC stuff because as I said, I am really new to Mac and know very little about computer code or processors or any of that stuff. But I do know that iTunes has recently been giving me some trouble, such as opening on start up and I can't figure out why and messing around with my iTunes libraries. I also read about the SMC firmware and the computer's sleep cycle so that sort of made sense. But I seriously need advice from someone a lot smarter than me. So, before you ask, both iTunes and my SMC firmware are up to date. I'm running a mid-2007 iMac Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with 2.4 GHz of speed.
You may not need all this junk, but in case you do, since the message tells me to make room and delete files, here goes. Now, if I need to make space and delete files, this is where I get confused and it's probably very simple but I'm still a relatively new Mac user and I still can't seem to find all the info about my Mac! I'm not exactly sure how much space I have left on my hard drive. I had to replace my hard drive last December and the invoice says it is a 500 GB 7200 SATA hard drive. For some reason I thought I had more than that. Regardless, System Profiler shows 10.26 GB currently available, 499.76 used; I assume that the used portion includes my partitioned drive that has my virtual machine on it? I may be using the wrong language when calling it that but that's how I understand it as a "partitioned drive". Now, when looking at the System Profiler, under Volumes, Capacity 209 MB writable diskOs1 - I think this my Virtual Machine. I also have three Western Digital drives that I use for Time Machine and for pictures and music; however, as I said, I am still new with Macs and do not fully understand the file structure so there may be pictures on my Mac hard drive that are duplicated on 1 or more of my WD drives but I don't know how to find them or if I do, I'm afraid to delete them. Of these WD external drives, 1 is 500 GB and is full with Time Machine backups; the 2nd WD drive is 3 TB and has 2.18 TB available and is currently being used for Time Machine backups; the final WD drive is 1 TB Firewire and currently has 694.33 GB available.
Any help would be appreciated. Please forgive any inaccurate terms or mis-statements of terminology as I do not really know what I'm talking about as far as the pieces and parts of the operating system; I'm just trying my best to describe what I see.
One more piece of advice that I would appreciate would be recommendations about a good file cleaner, for duplicates, messy file structure, space utilization software; it also needs to be idiot proof software. I have a trial version of Appdelete that I never really used and I have the purchased version of Tune Up My Mac that I haven't spent much time with because I'm afraid I'll delete something I shouldn't
Thank you for your help
Memalyn

Hi Memalyn
Essentially, the bare issue is that you have a 500GB hard drive with only 10GB free. That is not sufficient to run the system properly. The two options you have are to move/remove files to another location, or to install a larger hard drive (eg 2TB). Drive space has nothing to do with SMC firmware, and usually large media files are to blame.
My first recommendation is this: download and run the free OmniDiskSweeper. This will identify the exact size of all your folders - you can drill down into the subfolders and figure out where your largest culprits are. For example, you might find that your Pictures folder contains both an iPhoto Library and copies that you've brought in from a camera but are outside the iPhoto Library structure. Or perhaps you have a lot of purchased video content in iTunes.
If you find files that you KNOW you do not need, you can delete them. Don't delete them just because you have a backup, since if the backup fails, you will lose all your copies.
Don't worry about "cleaners" for now - they don't save much space and can actually cause problems. Deal with the large file situation first and see how you get on.
Let us know what you find out, and if you manage to get your space back.
Matt

My start up disc is full i have a macbook air, i back everuthing up with time capsule and have movies all my music libraries and photos onto that too so as i have free space, but my max still says my startup disc is full with "other"

my start up disc is full i have a macbook air, i back everuthing up with time capsule and have movies all my music libraries and photos onto that too so as i have free space, but my max still says my startup disc is full with "other"

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 as described here. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can also 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.
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.
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.

I keep getting a message that says HD disc is full. However, the status shows I have plenty of memory remaining. I get the same message when I try to save or email it. Any suggestions?

When I try to save or email a document, I get a message that "the disc is full trying to write to MAC HD. free some space on this drive, or save the document to another disc." I can't figure out how to save to another disc. And, when I check the available memory, my computer has 1 GB of available memory. I closed all programs and deleted the "trash" items. Any suggestions? Thanks

Disk space and memory are two different things.
This is system memory (RAM):
This is disk space:
If your startup disk is full there will be very little green in the above pie chart. You need to erase items from your startup volume for OS X to have space to work.
OS X Lion: Remove files and folders from your computer
Mountain Lion is the same.
Don't neglect to look for potentially deleted email messages, iPhoto items or iMovie clips that may have been moved to their own Trash. These must be "emptied" separately.

My startup disc is full and I want to find out the size of trash and junk in mailbox before dumping trash & junk

I have gotten this message saying that my startup disc is full.
I know I need to dump the trash can on my home screen and I have done that.
I know that there is both trash and junk in my mail app that I will dump also but I am curious as to the size of the trash and junk in mail but I don’t see how to find the sizes.
Its nice that the Junk tells me that there are 739 messages but it doesn’t say what the size of all of them is.
Do you know how i can see what the file sizes are for trash and Junk in Mail?
I know I can just delete them and see how much this yellow bar decreases but that seems like a crude way to see what the file sizes are that I have deleted.
If you have an answer for how to find out the file sizes of the Mail trash and junk I would like to know how to do it.
I have the latest version 10.9.4 on my Mac Air.

do you have the Size Column selected in the View pulldown?

Startup Disc is full and now the laptop opens to a grey screen only.

I was downloading a large amount of photos onto my MacBook last night, I was aware I was running out of space but didn't realize I was that close. During the second download the process just stopped and I got messages that the startup disc was full. I had to Force Quit iPhoto as it was frozen. When I returned to iPhoto after working with other iPhoto libraries on an external HD I could not open the iPhoto on my MacBook - I got some message saying that I needed to check my permissions to (make changes?) something like that. Everytime the same message. I restarted my computer and now when it powers up and I log in it takes me to a grey screen and stops there. The only thing I can do is move the cursor. I left that up overnight just to see if it needed time and woke to the same grey screen.
I'm getting a bit panicked as all my documents for work and photos are on this laptop. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get back into my files so I can remove photos to free up space on the startup disc?
Many thanks,
Bob

Try a Safe Boot;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US
That may free up enough space to access the HDD and delete data from the drive.
If that does not work, you will have to connect your MBP to another Mac to access the internal HDD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
Also do not forget to empty trash when you delete data. Only then is space allocated for new data.
Ciao.

Message saying startup disc nearly full.

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