Startup Disk Full - need to remove photos

Before I begin - please excuse my technological ignorance. If I leave out any information, please let me know and I will get any needed details up asap.
I have a MacBook Pro, running Version 10.9.2 OS X with 8 GB Memory and 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. After multiple warnings that my startup disk was almost full, I finally received the dreaded 'your startup disk is full' message (my fault for ignoring all of the warnings!). I was able to free up a neglible amount of space by deleting useless files - so now I have 2.54GB free out of 159.18GB.
My iPhoto library is taking up about 82GB of space, with almost 19,000 photos covering the past 10 years. It is time to move a large chunk of them off my IHD but I'm at a loss as to the best way to go about this - and I'm terrified of deleting them from my IHD and then losing them forever.
I have two external hard drives and have copied my iPhoto library to both. Questions are:
*Is it better to backup/copy to EHD the source files for the photos (not sure if I'm using the right wording here) instead of the iPhoto library? While I foresee using Macs for a while, I would hate to lose access to these photos 20 years down the line because I know longer have iPhoto - or (heaven forbid) iPhoto is replaced by something else that can't open my library.
*If yes to above - how do I do this?
*If copying iPhoto library to both EHDs is sufficient and I delete most of my photos from my IHD to free up space (probably all but the most recent 12 months), it seems redudanet to make additional copies of the entire library each time I backup. I don't want 5 iPhoto libraries on my EHD with some duplicate photos in each. The overlap would drive me insane. Is there an incremental backup option that only backs up the new photos to the EHD?
*Is there a better option than EHDs for backing up a huge amount of photos?
Again - please excuse any places I may have used the wrong wording or term - I'm a bit new to this backing up business but want to make sure I don't lose any photos. With a 9 month old baby it seems something precious and photo-worthy happens every couple of minutes.
Thanks!!
Christie

First of all you don't want to backup your photo library if the backup will be your only copy. If you delete the orinal library to gain space that will allow the backup software to delete the photos from your backup.
Also if your photos are valubable to you they really need the protection of a good well tested backup plan. Any data with any values always needs backup protection.
My suggestion is to move your photo library to and EHD that is formatted Mac OS Extended with GUID partition mapping. After the move test your library to be sure that the application can still open it properly. Once that is done, the original library can be deleted.
I would then get another EHD that is formatted MAC OS Extended with GUID partion mapping. Is hould be 2 to three time larger then you disk space start backing up to it. Time Machine is a very simple backup solution. Test the backup by restoring some data from the backup to sure your restore from it.
Allan

Similar Messages

STARTUP DISK FULL NEED TO DELETE FILES IN OTHER

I know vertually nothing about this computer. Am on the road with it and use it for business in my truck. I keep getting a message that says that the startup disk is almost full and it won't allow me to use it until I remove some files. Somehow, was able to bring up storage bar that shows that the "other" which is expressed in yellow, contains the vast majority of my usage or files and what is in there is beyond me. This has all started since I got the iPhone 5 and had to replace it and redownload all in my truck using my verison wifi. Please help you can. Thank you!

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. I've seen no evidence that there is any advantage to having more available space at any given time 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.
About local snapshots
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 (command-V) into the Terminal window. 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.

What do i need to do when i get a startup disk full error?

What do i need to do when i get a startup disk full error? I can't update software or use my MacAir at all.

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
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 free 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. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your 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.
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 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. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the 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
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.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
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 in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Macbook air startup disk full, after removed 149GB pic folder

After I removed ALL pictures worth of 149GB, I still get the "startup disk full" message. It pops out all the time, more than frustrating, my air is not just a typewriter.

After trashing the pictures did you empty the trash? Look under the Finder menu.

Startup Disk Full Error - Please help

Dear ALL,
I have started to notice recently that when I run Photoshop CS on my Mac OSX Tiger, I am getting the Startup Disk Full error message.
I have no clue as to how to correctly fix this issue. I looked at my HD and I seem to have 32GB available, which I would have thought would have been ample space. I have started to remove unwanted files and backup to CD large image files. So this should free up some more space. The question is will this be enough to get rid of this issue and is it associated with the amount of HD space on my drive? or would I need to run some script etc? or download/buy some other product to fix this?
Your help is greatly appreciated.
Max

OK I tried Macaroni...and when I tried to work with a TIFF file I get the same Startup Disk is FULL message. The I get an adobe message saying Scratch Disk is FULL.
Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

I keep getting "startup disk full" message even when I already moved all my files/documents to an external hard disk

Dear all,
What should I do? I keep getting the "startup disk full" message even when I already moved all my files and documents to an external hard disk.
Thanks a heap.

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article.
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 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 free 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.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your 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.
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 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 ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the 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
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 (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 with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning your files.
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 in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

This is baffling me...Startup Disk Full issue

Dear Members,
Yesterday I posted on this forum for some help with resolving a Startup Disk Full message that was appearing when I was using Adobe PhotoShop CS. This only started to happen recently ( 2 days ago). When I try and crop a TIFF or RAW file I get the Scratch Disk Full and the Startup Disk Full errors.
So I followed your advise and made backups, rebooted from an external CD (Tiger osx) and did the repair thing. There was minor header damage at the time. But this was fixed. I did a small test with Photoshop and all appeared OK, that is until this morning. I tried to edit/crop a TIFF file and I got the same messages again.
I have approx 152GB of total disk space now and after deleted/re moving to external media, I have approx 82GB of available space. I also have 2 GB of RAM. Yes I removed the files prior to doing the Disk Utility repair. And yes I did run Repair Permissions too. I have been using this setup for over a year with no issues, and YES the TIFF and RAW files have always been huge (approx 35MB).
What is baffling me now is why do I still get this error message. I took the liberty to re-run Disk Utility from external bootable CD and the Verify showed everything to be fine. So my questions are:
1. why am I still getting this error?
2. Am I at risk of damaging my system in any way?
3. How can I fix this issue?
Any help/pointers appreciated.
Max

OK Guys I think I have solved my problem.
In my desperation to find meaning to why this was happening I stumbled across another forum where a user had a slightly related issue -> http://kubotaworkshops.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1028&sid=5e2982e3da6027f683997 ffbcf088d59
In there he had mentioned a root cause of a related issue. Immediately I checked to see what the settings for the Crop tool were set to, and to my surprise they were at 300inches x 400 inches at 300 dpi. According to his calculations this put the Scratch Disk size at pretty large.
Anyway I am not quite sure on his mathematics and how he arrived at the 60.3GB file size, but I am guessing that my files were large to start with and somehow the scratch disk size needed was even larger, hence the reason for the error. Would appreciate if someone can explain how the 60.3GB was derived from a 100K file, 400x600inc @ 300dpi as in the link above
Hopefully this was the fix. I have tried it out and I am able to crop. But then again thats what I said yesterday
Max

Startup disk full on new Macbook Pro

I bought a Late 2013 13 inch 8 gb Macbook Pro to replace a mid 2010 that had hung up during an update and seized up. I migrated a backup of the 2010 to the 2013 and immediately began getting "startup disk full" notices. I mainly use it for pictures and music and very little document type stuff. I have emptied the trash and repaired permissions and emptied email and downloads etc. I can't figure out what is taking up my space. Storage looks like this, 16.94 free of 250.14. Other storage 166 gb, Apps 37 gb, Photos 14 gb, Movies 5 gb, Audio 10 gb. Any suggestions?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' 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.

Startup disk full error - boots normally but won't start finder

I'm having a problem in which my iMac when it boots gives me an error that the startup disk is full, but other than that it can boot normally and allow me to log in, but after that the startup stalls. I never get past the default "outer space" desktop image and finder never starts, so there's no icons, no dock, and nothing on the menu bar. What's weird is that Safari and Mail start and I can see them because I believe I have them starting automatically at boot. Safari works (I'm using it now to enter this discussion). Mail on the other hand starts but is hung checking for the servers for incoming mail.
I've tried to boot in safe mode (holding down Shift key at startup), but it doesn't work.
I've tried to boot in single user mode (holding down cmd-S at startup), but it doesn't work either.
I've tried to boot from Snow Leopard installation media (holding down C at startup), but it doesn't work as well.
Each time I try one of these alternate boot methods, it just takes me to the normal login screen with the startup disk full message. I click OK, login, and get stuck.
I'm just trying to get the finder started so that I can delete some files, but I just can't get that far. It's strange that the browser works perfectly and internet connection is fine, but nothing else works.
Thoughts? Thanks. - Mike

Hi Lina, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Safe Mode might allow you to boot and free up some space.
If you have access to another Mac and a FireWire cable, another option would be to use FireWire Target Disk Mode to transfer data to the other Mac and delete it on your MBA.
If either way works, you want to open up somewhere around 15% free space. Once you do that, run Repair Disk: Boot from install disc (insert disc>restart>immediately hold down c key and keep holding it until you see “Preparing Installation”)>at first screen select the language and click Continue> click on the Utilities Menu in the menu bar>open Disk Utility>select your HD in the panel on the left side>click Repair Disk at bottom of main window. Run this at least twice, and keep running it until it says “appears ok” twice in a row. If that doesn’t happen, you may need a stronger utility such as DiskWarrior or if the directory is damaged beyond repair, you may need to reinstall the OS, or you may have a damaged HD (repair utilities can only repair the directory structure, not the HD itself).
Ultimately, though, it sounds like you need a larger HD . . . .

Adobe Photoshop Scratch Disk Full/Startup Disk Full error - PLEASE HELP

Dear ALL,
I have started to notice recently that when I run Photoshop CS on my Mac OSX Tiger, I am getting the Startup Disk Full error message. Never happended before.
Since my initial post I downloaded Macaroni (utility) and have run the daily/weekly/monthly backups, checked the /private/var/vm and /private/var/log and /Volumes. Nothing unusual there...
When I started getting this error I had 32GB left on a looked at my HD and I seem to have 32GB available on a 152GB drive. Now after deleting I have 76GB capacity left.
But when I tried to open a Photoshop PSD or TIFF file and do a crop I still get tge Startup Disk is Full error followed by the Adobe Photoshop error Scratch Disk is Full.
I am thinking of running the Disk Utility from the Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and doing a Verify Disk and Verify Disk Permissions followed by Repair Disk Permissions. I will be logged into the machine whilst doing this. Is there any danger in this as I have read elsewhere that I need to do this from a bootable volume. If that is the case how do I create a bootable disk/cd? If not then what is the cure to my Disk Full as surely there is now nearly 50% FREE!!!!!
Please help.
Max

PS will always use the boot disk for scratch to some extent even with an alternate primary scratch disk.
Be sure to turn off Spotlight as it causes problems.
4GB of RAM would be nice, I understand small files don't work well if there is more than 4GB RAM but large files will. OS X uses free RAM as cache and RAM disk before using disk drives.
How much RAM is allocated to PS? More RAM would help.
A dedicated lean boot drive helps. Install just what is needed for your work, use a separate drive for data, and yet another RAID volume for scratch.
When in doubt, backup with SuperDuper, and do an erase and then restore. Always backup before repairing; and never, ever, use an old version of Tiger CD/DVD - like 10.4.2 on 10.4.7/.8. Use "fsck" instead, or your emergency boot drive.
Also, give Applejack a shot and delete the cache folders and swap files from time to time to keep a system humming. CS/CS2 and Tiger benefit nicely from more RAM.

Startup Disk Full shows up

Dear Sir,
Please help me to solve this problem,
My Macbook Pro shows some errors 'Startup Disk Full',
and the bad thing is,it shows after i on my Macbook and the popup comes up before i can entering the menu,
So what should i do now?

It's after 2am her in the US.
Can you start up in safe mode? If so, empty your trash if there is anything in there. Also, start deleting some files or transfer them to an external disk.
Mac OS X 10.6: Starting up in safe mode
Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode
Going to bed now. The night owls will need to take over from here if you need further help.

What do you do when message is "startup Disk Full"?

what do you do when message is "startup Disk Full"?

You must Move or trash some really big GB+ sized files right away, before OSX destroys itself.
Empty the Trash if you haven't lately.
How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?
OmniDiskSweeper is likely the easiest/best, and is now free...
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/
And if needed, you can use Terminal to run it in admin mode to see files/folders your user can't see...
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how_to_recover_missing_hard_drive_space/

ITunes, iPhone startup disk full messages

Since I got my iPhone 3G 2 weeks ago I have started getting "Startup Disk Full" messages. I then noticed that if iTunes is running, not downloading anything or searching for anything my remaining drive space starts to reduce until the messages. If I reboot this will give me back anywhere from 1 GB to 3 GB of drive space. I used to go for months without rebooting now I can't go a day. What would cause this? iTunes 8.0.2, OSX 10.5.5, iPhone OS2.2, Powerbook G4 1Ghz, 160GB drive, 1GB ram.

open up iTunes to see what is taking up the space.. is it applications/Media/Photos and delete appropriately. If not then you might have just hit a bug or installed some bad application.

HT1349 when I start my macbook it shows STARTUP DISK FULL, and I cannot do anything else, it doesnt let me get into the computer to delete any programs,,,, What should I do ?

when I start my macbook it shows STARTUP DISK FULL, and I cannot do anything else, it doesnt let me get into the computer to delete any programs,,,, What should I do ?

Try starting in Safe mode which does not load all the software that is used in a regular boot. It also runs a disk check. After booting in safe mode transfer or trash stuff you don't really need so as to free up disk space. Be sure to hold the shift key down continously till a progress bar shows on the screen.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Help: Premiere is making my startup disk full, but I set everything to go on an external hard drive.

The iMac I am using is for the sole purpose of editing and nothing else. I have no idea what is making my startup disk full, and I can not locate the files that are filling the startup disk except the fact that it is telling me I am running out of space. The startup disk is a 250GB SSD, the second internal drive is 1 TB HDD. All of my premiere and video files are loaded ton a 4TB G-RAID.

Do you have your projects set to use a drive other than startup?
My 3 hard drives to edit AVCHD are configured as...
1 - 320Gig Boot for Win7 64bit Pro and ALL program installs
2 - 320Gig data for Win7 paging swap file and video project files
When I create a project on #2 drive, the various work files follow,
so my boot drive is not used for the media cache folders and files
3 - 1Terabyte data for all video files... input & output files

Startup Disk Full - need to remove photos

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