Start up disc is almost full.

I keep receiving this message after putting lots of songs from my ipod onto my mac.
However, up until this i had around 14000 songs on my mac, deleted them all in order to start putting the songs from my ipod onto it again and now even though i only have around 6000 songs, it tells me it is full.
How can it say it is full now with only 6000 when it held 14000 before? im so confused, i don't know what needs to be deleted or how to make more room
Hannah

How did you delete the original songs, hannah? is it possible that you simply deleted them from the iTunes library, but not from the computer itself?
Further, when you brought the 6000 songs back what format did you import them in? You can check this by opening up iTunes, making sure that "Kind" is selected in the View > View Options menu and looking in the relevant column. Different encoding formats take up very different amounts of room. If you have imported them as AIFF files, for example, then they will take up a LOT of space.
You might also want to make sure that you don't have multiple copies of the songs installed on the computer. Enter the name of one of the songs in Spotlight and see if multiple copies are present.
You might also want to check that it is the Music which is actually taking up the space. Head to your music folder, and use "Get Info" from the Finder > File menu, to check whether its contents are large enough to explain the full drive..
There are other things that can lead to the loss of HD space that don't relate directly to iTunes, so if the above approaches don't reveal an answer, post back.
Cheers
Rod

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My start up disc is almost full. How can I get my data stored on my 2nd disc

I have an i Mac working with OS X 10.9.5 Processor: 2.93 GHz Intel Core i7. I have a solid state hard disc of 250 GB which is the start up disc. There is a conventional second hard disc of 2 TB. The way it is set up the 2nd disc is not being used. My start up disc is almost full. How to I change it so that my data is stored on my 2nd disc.

I am having the same problem Have devoted well over 10 hours to the destroyed WD Passport, memory and constant crashes of untold origin, and of course wasting time with the good ol' spinning wheel of death. Any fixes for memory, back up drives and crashes would be welcome. I am tired of these upgrades making my life worse. Once upon a time Apple cared and was not so awful in customer relations and quality of upgrades to the OS. Now, not so much. I am searching through the now more difficult to search through Discussions to find fixes for these problems but have not opened any that are satisfactory. Please will someone in the know, not so much an Apple shill cause they just blame the user, but actual Apple users and customers who have had these issues and can now share the knowledge. Please!

I keep getting the message that my start up disc is almost full, what can I do?

I keep getting the message that my start up disc is almost full. What can I do?

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. 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 the 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.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. 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. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP 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.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in 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 by pressing 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 to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

My start up disc is almost full. How do I make more room?

I keep getting this message that my Startuo disc is almost full. Please delete some files to make more room. I have deleted several files, but a few weeks later I get the same message again. Is there something else I should be doing or checking?
I own a MAC OS X version 10.5.8
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Please help.
Thanks

There is no magic bullet. You need to delete stuff off the startup drive.
The biggest hard drive space hogs are videos, images and music. The good news is that all of these can - and probably should - be moved to an external drive. So my advice would be to get yourself an external hard drive, connect it to your Macbook, format it correctly, move what you can to that drive, and the ERASE them off the startup.
Good luck.

Lightroom says my start up disc is almost full? How is that resolved?

I'm using a Macbookpro with Lightroom 4.4.
Can't imprort photographs (RAW format) from camera card as the start up disc won't allow it.
Where's the start up disc and how is the matter resolved?
Is it a Mac issue or a Adobe issue or a mix of both?

The startup disk is, well, the hard drive or SSD on the Macbook. If it really is almost full, you need to clear some space ASAP before the whole thing crashes. A drive more than, say, 4/5 full is a disaster waiting to happen.
It's called startup disk because that's what it is if you have more than one. Otherwise known as system drive.
If it's a false message I don't know, maybe it's heavily fragmented (yes, I know, that's not supposed to happen on a Mac).

HT1291 my start up disc is almost full, can i migrate from disc 1 to disc 4 in the same mac pro desktop machine

I have a mac pro quad 8, my start up disc is 500 gig, my time mach disc is 500 gig, i have these in position 1 and 2 in my comp, i have 2terra byt disc in possy 3 and possy 4 in the mac pro, can i migrate in the same mach. from start up disc to disc 4 and once completed can i then change disc 4 to strt up disc bay one position. as such then have a start up disc wich is two terra bytes? and if so how do i go about that. your help is much apreciated , thanks.

Yes, you can. Use Disk Utility to clone one disk to the other:
Clone Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
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.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
     5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the Disk 4. Source means the current startup drive - Disk 1.
Note that a Time Machine backup drive needs to be a minimum of twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. If you have a 1 TB startup drive, then you need a 2 TB backup drive if you use Time Machine.

Macbook Pro start up disc is almost full

What do I do?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

My startup disc is almost full??

I am getting a message stating that my Start-up disc is almost full. I appear to have only 350 Mb available out 320Gb. I have no photos or videos on the device. What must I do?

You must move or delete files from your internal drive. Either Move them to an external drive or Move them to the trash then empty the trash.

I have a mac notebook and time capsule. I got a message that my startup disc is almost full. not sure where to go from here. if i delete files will they still be on the time capsule.

I have a Mac notebook and back up to time capsule. I Got a message that my statup disc is almost full and I need to delete files. Not sure which files it means and will i lose my files if they are saved on the time capsule.

Visit
The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on the hard drive. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
Alert TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.

Error - start up disk is almost full

Bought this iMac not quite a year ago. I had very few files - some pictures and music mostly. Tried to update ANYTHING and kept receiving "start up disk is almost full". Burned pictures to disc and deleted them. Also, accidentally deleted all music as well. I am still receiving the error message. I called Apple and removing media files was their suggestion as well. I have no idea what to do next - I have no "tech savvy"
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

Okay, so for some reason your hard disk is literally just about out of space. Your OS needs about 10 - 15 GB of space empty at all times to function properly, so you'll need to take this somewhat seriously since you only have 1 GB left.
Before I forget: have you regularly emptied your trash bin?? If not, see how much is in there - if it is a lot, you might want to take out some of it temporarily and then start deleting. If you have a lot in there, it may choke on trying to delete it all, so do it in smaller batches.
Also, you can download Whatsize:
http://whatsizemac.com/
It will help you figure out what is hogging all your space (and help getting rid of it). Since you have to little space, you may need to get rid of some stuff just to make room for the file you want to download and run.

I have a Mac Air. It said my start up disk was almost full and to delete files. I did but am not sure of what all I should delete. Then the color wheel wouldn't stop spinning so I just closed it. Now it won't open up at all. What can I do?

I deleted files from my MacBook Air after it said my start up disk was almost full. It did several xs, then the color wheel wouldn't stop spinning, so I closed it. Then after a sufficient amount of time, I tried to start it up again, only now the Apple start up wheel just spins non stop and nothing else happens. How or what can I do to get my MacBook Air to work again, without having to take it in? Thanks so much!

Backup your MBA then take it to Apple

When I bought my Mac Air OSX Version 10.9.2 my daughter helped me migrate the contents of my previous macbook. But in the process seems to have duplicated the iTunes library . The start up disk is almost full and plus it doesn't my iPhone. Please help!

When I bought my Mac Air OSX Version 10.9.2 my daughter helped me migrate the contents of my previous macbook. But in the process seems to have duplicated the iTunes library - How do I get rid of one. The start up disk is almost full and plus it doesn't synch properly with my iPhone 4S. Please help!

Hello nicky:
You should run repair disk from your software install DVD before you try anything else. The crash may have damaged some of your directories - and a possible cause of the "missing/not missing" tunes.
Barry

I have a mac os x ver. 10.5.8 2x2.8 quad. my start up disk is almost full. can i change my start up disk from the original hard drive to an additional hard drive i added in Bay 4?

i have a mac os x ver. 10.5.8 2x2.8 quad. my start up disk is almost full. can i change my start up disk from the original hard drive to an additional hard drive i added in Bay 4?

Always want to keep the boot drive with more free space than may seem necessary for performance and to function at its best, 30-40% free or even 50% is not excessive.
Ideal is to separate your system from your data.
You should always have bootable backup / clone of your system
Don't use a green drive for system or data though.
When you are done cloning system and/or data, remove the old original and keep as backup.
Then move the system drive to #1 - no matter what you want to reset the default boot volume to where the system is.
Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy
Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1
http://www.bombich.com/software/updates/ccc-3.5.html
How to clone your system:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner
http://www.macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120711_2-MacPro-internal-clone-ba ckup.html
How to relocate system and user data to another drive:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4337
By staying with 10.5.8 you are not going to receive security updates, might want to consider 10.6.8.

Hi, Im new to Apple MacBook PRO. I have saved about 50GB files plus applications and message advises that my start up disk is almost full! My MacBook pro has a 500GB hard drive so don't know why this message is coming up. Please help.

Hi, Im new to Apple MacBook PRO. I have saved about 50GB files plus applications and message advises that my start up disk is almost full! My MacBook pro has a 500GB hard drive so don't know why this message is coming up. Please help.

MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.7_lion?view=discussi ons

What data do I need to remove as I am getting alerts that my start-up disk is almost full?

What data do I need to remove from my laptop as I am getting alerts that my start-up disk is almost full. I have been deleting emails (I still have 4000+ in my inbox).
Also, I have been unable to download software updates nor been able to download more photos from my iPhone because there is too much on my hard drive. I don't know what to delete. I have no books or movies on laptop.
Thanks-----this is my maiden attempt for online discussion support.

Read here > Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
And here > Freeing Up Hard Disk Space - Mac Guides
For iTunes you can back up your library...
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
Or burn iTunes media to CD/DVD's > How to back up your media in iTunes

Start up disc is almost full.

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