Popup window saying max os x startup disk has no more space

I recently started having a window pop up that says "Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory." Under that it says "To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help." I did have several applications open that weren't being used, so I quit those and closed several windows, and the window stopped popping up. Now it startedup again and I can't get it to stop. What can I do to fix this issue? Thanks

I'm also having this issue. I've just deleted what seemed to be an enormous amount of old pictures, files, videos, etc. The popup is still occuring. Exactly how much free space do I need? I currently have 153 GB out of 319 GB free. Seems like I have more than enough space available.

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Max OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory

My mac is frozen with a force Quit Applications message

The message has nothing to do with low disk space.
There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory (that is, the memory chips on the logic board) and virtual memory (one or more files on the startup volume.) That activity is relatively slow and causes the whole system to be less responsive. It can happen for two reasons:
A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)
Not enough memory for your usage pattern
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
These instructions are for OS X 10.9 ("Mavericks.") The procedure may be slightly different for earlier versions of OS X.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The processes named "Safari Web Content" render web pages for Safari. They use a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider them prime suspects.
Another process often implicated in memory leaks is "inkjet4" or "inkjet8," which is a component of the HP printing software. If it's present, force-quit the process in Activity Monitor to solve the problem temporarily. Empty the print queues in the Printers & Scanners preference pane (which has a slightly different name in each recent version of OS X.) If you don't use an HP printer, remove the software. Otherwise, if the problem is recurrent, update the software (which may not help) or contact HP support.
"Wired" memory should be a small part of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If you have a lot of wired memory, that's usually an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

Startup disk has no more space

Since I installed Lion this box pops up :
Your max OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
HWta shall I do?

The error essentially means your computer is out of memory. Most likely, some program you're running is buggy and has whats called a "memory leak". This is a common issue that all Operating Systems have to deal with.
You can use Activity Monitor to learn which program on your computer is the culprit.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

"Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space avaliable for..." error

Last night, a dialog box appeared with the following error (exact quote):
"Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
The box then had a force quite menu with the option to force quit any applications that were currently open.
I opened activity monitor, and nothing seems to have a CPU % of over 9% on any of the tabs, so I'm not sure what is causing this message to appear and how to fix it. Activity Monitor also says I have 2.07 GB out of 1.88 GB available, so I don't think this is a memory issue either. Help?
Thanks,
-Josh

What's the size of your HDD, and how much space is unused? You can check in /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility - highlight Macintosh HD and read the figures at bottom right.
If the available space is under about 15-20% of the total capacity, the message is telling you that there isn't enough disc space left for application swap files to be used.

"Your Mac OS X Startup Disk Has No More Space For Application Memory"

I've been having a problem in the last few days with my Mac. I would be surfing the net, or doing whatever, and an error message would randomly pop up on my screen. It would say: "_Your Mac OS X Startup Disk Has No More Space For Application Memory_". Then the dialog box would give me the option to PAUSE or *Force Quit* applications. But instead of letting me click these buttons, my Mac would just automatically freeze after the dialog box popped up!
The odd thing is, is that I truly was NOT using that much memory...much less than I usually do. Plus I have 4 GB of RAM, and I know I wasn't maxing it out.
Does anyone know why this error message would be popping up like this (especially since there was no way that I was using all my Application Memory)? And does anyone know why my Mac just freezes instantly when the error message pops up?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! It's quite hard use my Mac right now, since I never know when it's gonna freeze up on me!
Thanks!

I assume that means no backups? That's a problem you need to fix next.
You might be able to start your Mac in "Target Disk Mode" while connected to the other Mac. You do this by holding down the "T" key while booting. And I was wrong: you must use Firewire, not USB.
The other Mac will see your HD as an external F/W drive. You may have to "mount" it via Disk Utility, if it doesn't show up on the desktop and/or Finder sidebar.
You probably need to do a lot of examining what's not needed, and perhaps some maintenance, but you don't want to do that under pressure.
To get it running and buy just a bit of time, your best bet is to copy some big stuff (like video) either to the other Mac's hard drive or to one or more DVDs, then delete it from your HD.
Once you get several GB free, you should be able to boot it. Then get started cleaning it up. There are many threads in this forum with links and suggestions for how to do this. Just search for +Disk Full.+
Did this happen all of a sudden? If so, it's possible you had some sort of runaway or continually failing process, filling up some logs and/or caches. If you don't do routine maintenance, either by clearing your browser cache, etc., manually, or via an app like OnyX, that's another thing you might want to investigate.

When I open my iMac, I get this message - Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. ???????

When I open my iMac, I get the following message : Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. Then it says to quit applications not in usw and to close windows and remove files from startup disk. It lists Safari, email and Finder. I force a quit on all applications yet the same message comes up every time I open an application. What do I do to get rid of this once and for all? The computer is not even two years old and is only used for email and Safari. Help will be greatly appreciated,

The message has nothing to do with low disk space.
There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory (that is, the memory chips on the logic board) and virtual memory (one or more files on the startup volume.) That activity is relatively slow and causes the whole system to be less responsive. It can happen for two reasons:
A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)
Not enough memory for your usage pattern
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
These instructions are for OS X 10.9 ("Mavericks.") The procedure may be slightly different for earlier versions of OS X.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The processes named "Safari Web Content" render web pages for Safari. They use a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider them prime suspects.
Another process often implicated in memory leaks is "inkjet4" or "inkjet8," which is a component of the HP printing software. If it's present, force-quit the process in Activity Monitor to solve the problem temporarily. Empty the print queues in the Printers & Scanners preference pane (which has a slightly different name in each recent version of OS X.) If you don't use an HP printer, remove the software. Otherwise, if the problem is recurrent, update the software (which may not help) or contact HP support.
"Wired" memory should be a small part of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If you have a lot of wired memory, that's usually an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

New MacAir error states "your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" All I have added is MS Office

My new Mac Air states that my " Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" and wants to force quit Safari. I have only added MS Office to the computer and Carbonite. Any suggestions?

Select the icon of your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you renamed it) in the Finder and open the Info window. What value is shown for Available (space)?

Msg states: "your Mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory...Removing files from startup disk may help." yet, I have 299.11GB of 319.73GB available. Why is msg received?

The full message reads as, "
Force Quit Applications
Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
Currently I have:
Capacity: 319.73GB ; Available: 299.11GB ; Used: 20.62GB
Why am I receiving this message and being forced to force quit items? Both times the message has been received, Safari was open (frozen) while checking yahoo! mail.
I received my MacBook Pro as a gift less than a month ago and I have only saved 20 pictures within iPhoto and installed Skype and Vuze...no other modifications from default have been made.
Any idea?

The full message reads as, "
Force Quit Applications
Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
Currently I have:
Capacity: 319.73GB ; Available: 299.11GB ; Used: 20.62GB
Why am I receiving this message and being forced to force quit items? Both times the message has been received, Safari was open (frozen) while checking yahoo! mail.
I received my MacBook Pro as a gift less than a month ago and I have only saved 20 pictures within iPhoto and installed Skype and Vuze...no other modifications from default have been made.
Any idea?

"Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" - uploading files problem

Hi everyone,
I'm running a late-2012 27 inch iMac - 3.4GHz Intel Core i7, 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3 with the 3TB fusion drive, OS 10.8.4. At present there is 1.92TB of available storage.
I have received this message "Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" just before a full on crash multiple times in the past couple of days whilst using WeTransfer to send over some large files (500MB+). The applications I have had open at the time have been: Activity Monitor, App Store, Firefox, and Finder. Over the course of uploading the files, the active system memory has gone from 1.04GB and steadily increased until it more or less maxes out around 29GB, at which point the Page Outs rocket up to around 40GB/s and the swap memory fills up pretty quickly until the computer basically can't take any more and blacks out.
This is a pretty new thing, haven't really had an issues before. My main software used: Sibelius 7 & Logic Pro X. I've also recently started working with Final Cut Pro X, which seems to have been struggling at points. I've tried closing everything, restarting the computer and not opening anything (specifically NOT FCPX) before attempting an upload. I've even gone so far as to remove FCPX from my system, and yet the problem is still recurring. Both "kernal_task" and "WindowServer" have been running high on CPU when these problems have occurred.
Does anyone know what might be the issue and how it could possibly be resolved?
Really appreciate any help, I'm in the middle of a fairly sizeable project and the deadlines are just around the corner.
Thanks,
Tom

There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory. That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory

This message pops up when running the system for some time a day or 2. Full message
"Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using, Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
HD Space 361.27GB Free of 620
2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Dou
Memery 4 GB 1067MHz

This answers both of your questions. The computer needs some hard drive space for swap files and for storing other information while the computer runs. You are getting a warning that there is limited hard drive space that is affecting the ability of the computer to run correctly. Note, that your hard drive it not completely full. It that where so, you would be seeing really weird behaviors and likely applications would be crashing right and left. If nothing is done to remedy the situation, you will likely start to see weird behaviors and unexpected crashes.
Time for some clean up. Perhaps, there are some old files that can be trashed. Perhaps there are some old files that you want to save but don't use that often. Do you need instant access to old iMovie and iDVD projects? They take up a lot of space. These seldom used files could be moved to a secondary hard drive.
Also, use a product like OmniSweeper by Omnigroup; It will help to find folders/files that are large. It helps me to find those "Ah-ha" files. Those are the large files that I forgot I had on my hard drives that I don't need anymore yet are using GB of space. BTW, OmniSweeper is free!
Best of luck in cleaning up.

Startup disk has no more space for application memory - itunes using 19GBytes!

I am having intermittent but recurring issues with the dialog "Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space for application memory" and iTunes is listed as not responding. Activity Monitorsays iTunes consuming on various instances 16 and 19GBytes etc.
Any ideas??
System is a ~ 6month old 27" late 2012 iMac with OS X 10.8.4 32 GBytes RAM and 3TB disk with 2TB free. App Store says no updates.

Read this whole message before doing anything.
Back up all data.
Quit iTunes if it’s running.
Step 1
Hold down the option key and select
Go ▹ Library
from the Finder menu bar. Move the following items from the Library folder to the Trash, if they exist:
Caches/com.apple.iTunes
Caches/QCCompositionRepository-com.apple.iTunes.cache
Saved Application State/com.apple.iTunes.savedState
Leave the Library folder open. Try iTunes again. If it works now, stop here. Close the Library folder.
Step 2
If you still have problems, quit iTunes again. Go back to the Finder and move the following item from the open Library folder to the Desktop:
iTunes
Note: you are not moving the iTunes application. You’re moving a folder named “iTunes.”
Test. If iTunes now works, delete the iTunes folder on the Desktop. Otherwise, quit iTunes again. Put back the folder you moved, overwriting the newer one that may have been created in its place, and continue.
Step 3
In the Preferences subfolder, there may be several files having names that begin with either of the following strings:
com.apple.iTunes
com.apple.mobile.iTunes
Move them all to the Desktop.
Also in the Preferences folder, there's a subfolder named "ByHost". Open it and do the same thing.
Test again. This time iTunes should perform normally, but your settings will be lost. You may be able to put back some of the files you moved to the Desktop in this step. Relaunch and test after each one. Eventually you should find one or more that causes iTunes to malfunction. Delete those files and recreate whatever settings they contained.
If the issue is still not resolved, quit iTunes again and put all the items you moved to the Desktop back where they were. You don’t need to replace the items you moved to the Trash. Stop here and post again.
If you later decide that you don’t like the results of steps 2 and 3, you can undo them completely by quitting iTunes and restoring the items you deleted in those steps from your backup.

Process "deskjet" is using up over 1GB of RAM and over 60GB of VRAM after an hour or so of use. ALSO, "Your startup disk has no more space" error.

The blowers will kick on and I get the: "Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory." with a list of running apps that aren't going over anything abnormal (Chrome, Finder, Activity Monitor). Quitting any of the applications that appear the dialog continues to pop up. Performance doesn't appear to suffer but the computer definitely acts like it's busy with only a few applications open, however force quitting deskjet slows down the blowers (fans).
I have 20GB remaining on my boot drive. I have also lived several months with less than 5GB remaining and have never seen this error from Mac OS X 10 - 10.8. The only thing different between then and now is the boot drive is a SSD.
I focus on the printer drivers because that's something I can't find anywhere else through Google or Discussion searches. The "startup disk" error has some hits that I have yet to go through completely, although initial results show that it may be a vague bug/leak with SSDs.
(Edit: After clearing up another GB or so and 10 minutes of "deskjet" being killed, it's the longest I've gone without the dialog popping up. Although once I restart that driver will go out of control again).
-Less than a month old clean installation of Mountain Lion 10.8.2
-Early 2008 MBP
-SSD bootdrive
-500GB secondary HDD
-4GB RAM
-Permissions have been repaired just yesterday.
-SMC and PRAM reset as well, although it won't hurt to do it again when I get back home.

Why is my computer slow?
..Step by Step to fix your Mac

Mac osx startup disk has no more space available

I get the error message "Mac OS Startup disk has no more space available." I have run the resolution suggested on support helpsite. Still running very slow.
Suggestions?

PapaCarl wrote:
I get the error message "Mac OS Startup disk has no more space available." I have run the resolution suggested on support helpsite. Still running very slow.
Suggestions?
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18694514#18694514
Also have a look on the right side of this page under 'More Like This'.
Cheers
Pete

IMac Memory Issues: "Your Mac OSX Startup Disk Has No More Space Available"

Hi all,
I've done some extensive searching on my issue, and haven't been able to find a solid solution. I was hoping that if I shared my specific problem, it might shed some light on what is going on. My OS is current: 10.8.2 with plenty of HD space (over 250 GB) and 4 GB ram.
Over the past couple of days, my iMac has become very slow and laggy. Most times I will eventually get the message: "Your Mac OSX Startup Disk Has No More Space Available". This is after it has been lagging for quite a while, sometimes several hours.
I will restart, things will be sufficiently fast for a few minutes, but once I start working in any application (including any browser, or adobe software) it starts to slow down until it is eventually to a crawl, with the spinny wheel showing up often, even when only one application is open at a time. It doesn't take more than several minutes to start slowing down. Even simple things like hovering over the dock start to really lag, or opening my applications folder or System Preferences can take upwards of 15-30 seconds, even several minutes sometimes.
Here's some steps I've taken so far:
- Checked the activity monitor and system memory seems fine. No single app takes up more than 7% or so of memory at any given time. 1.65 GB active, 1.64 GB inactive, about 700 MB wired, free about 4 MB. VM size is 247 GB, CPU also seems OK: (%user around 10-20%, %System around 10%, Idle around 70-80%). No single app seems to be taking up an excessive amount of Real Memory.
- Permissions repair (It found some things to fix, but never completely finished, seemed to freeze after several hours, tried it several times)
- Checked disk for repair (no problems found), did the S.M.A.R.T check and ran tests again using Onyx.
- Re-indexed Macintosh HD
- I saw a suggestion to reset the PRAM, so I did that.
I do have the system backed up via Time Machine. Suggestions for further action are very much appreciated!

Ok, thanks. Here's a screenshot from during when it was running to a near halt (took me a while even to take the screenshot):
Here's a second screenshot after restart. All I did was open Chrome to post this:
At this exact moment I have about 500MB of memory free, but I have been watching it slowly count down starting from 2GB free when I first restarted. So far it is running smoothly, but I am guessing that it will start to lag again once the free memory dials down.
In case there is any correlation: I happened to have a strange issue with my internet connection. My router seems to be working fine, and I have wi-fi connected around the house. However, I did have my iMac connected via ethernet cable, and the wired connection was not working (was not finding a DNS address), but when I go to Wi-fi, it works. Again, could be totally unrelated, but it started just before the slowdown.

Mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Suddenly over the past 2-3 weeks, first my iMac, then my Mac Pro both started giving me the pop-up error message: "Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory" offering for me to Force Quit open applications. Which does not work. Restarting temporarily helps, but the error will eventually return.
I have over 50% available in HD space on the iMac.
Also, I do not know if this is related, but the computers are running very slowly as well.
Additionally, before all of this, our Contact data, sync with Mobile Me, tripled in size with duplicates and jumbled messages.
Seemed like a cascade of failures beginning with contacts and ending with the memory error.
I have tried Applejack several times to no avail.
Any one have any ideas? Thanks.

CMCSK wrote:
first my iMac, then my Mac Pro
I have over 50% available in HD space on the iMac.
What about the Mac Pro? How large is your hard drive on both computers?
Problem first appeared on the iMac, then the MacPro starting giving the same error.
MacPro 999.5 GB total, 277 GB available
iMac 499.76 GB total, 214 GB available
"Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory"
Is FileVault enabled?
Never (unless it turned on itself)
have tried Applejack several times to no avail.
Have you tried using _Disk Utility from your install disc?_
From the HD, but not from from install disk. I will dig it out and try it.
Did you run Apple's Hardware Test?
Where do I find this?
Did you disconnect all peripherals except for the keyboard & mice while troubleshooting?
I did not since I am having the same problem on 2 different computers.
the computers are running very slowly as well.
Check the items in the Login Items. Delete or disable all you do not need.

Popup window saying max os x startup disk has no more space

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