Why is my computer telling me my start up disk is full?
Why is my computer telling me my start up disk is full? and What do I do about it? Please help - Linda
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.
Similar Messages
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Please help - I am not too computer savvi and my computer keeps telling me my start up disk is full. I have purchased a passport and transferred loads of images and files onto that and then deleted them from my computer but the message is still the same and I can't download anything.
How big is your hard drive, and how much space is used/free?
To find out, click once on the hard drive icon on your desktop to highlight it (it will be called Macintosh HD unless you renamed it). Click the command and I keys on your keyboard to open the information window. In "General", you will see Capacity and Available. What are those figures?
If you have a little bit of space left, I recommend that you install Omnidisksweeper (it's free) to tell you what folders are using up the most room.
Be careful when you transfer files - only move files that you know are yours. Don't move or delete any system files unless you're specifically recommended to do so (some files are safe to delete; some are not).
Matt -
Window popping up telling me my start up disk is full????
Im unable to understand how this could happen given its new imac and cant find how to fix this apparent problem?
Let's check a couple of things first. In the finder, you can see that you still have GBs available right? Bottom of the window. Let me know if this is correct. Also, your startup disk is your computer hard drive, yes? You don't have attached hard drives from which you start up the system. You can check that using system preferences and then choosing Startup disk to see which is the drive that startups your system. I am also assuming that you have empty the trash, run 'repair permission' in your disk utility. Come back with the answers, and then we'll take it another level.
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My MacBook Air is always telling me that my start up disk is full or nearly full. Will iTunes match alleviate the problem of storage on my Hard Drive? I have an iCloud account.
It could, but I wouldn't. You really need two external hard drives (one to act as a backup for the other one). Relocate your entire iTunes library to the external drive unless there are things you would prefer to simply archive (movies you don't need to watch everyday).
FAQ: Why iTunes Match Can Not Be Used as a Backup - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4112
Using Match as a backup for iTunes - https://discussions.apple.com/message/17039436#17039436
To move a library if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its sub-folders and files) intact to the other drive. Hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) and open iTunes. At the prompt to create or choose a library choose the copied iTunes folder. -
I am having problems gettting my mail to work ... Mac telling me that my start up disk id full and to delete some files to free up space ... have done this but when i open mail from the dock it just brings up the colour wheel and nothing happening ... it shows when you right click on the mail icon that " application not responding"
If your hard drive is getting full, you need to free up, at least, 20 GBs of space on your iMac's hard drive.
If your Mac is running a fairly recent version of OS X, here are some general guidelines.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it run the automatic ans S.M,A.R.T. tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the tabs that have the ability to clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck! -
For a while now my computer has been saying " Start up disk is nearly full", however I don't have a lot of stuff saved on the computer I moved a lot to a flash drive, and all the other stuff are songs and recently saved essays for school. I have and frequently empty my trash can. I have researched this before and i see a lot of things that say get a external hard drive, but before I go and purchase one I want to make sure there is no other, simpler way, to solve this problem. Help Please.
You need an external drive so you can free up disk space. Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure you have a minimum of 15% free disk space.
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk -
Computer won't boot, start up disk full....help!
I week or so ago I kept getting an error message that my HD was full. I checked the HD and sure enough, all 250GB is used. How the heck? Even with all of my pictures and music, my hard drive is only about 1/2 full and this just happened all of a sudden so I am thinking virus or torrent issue? Regardless, before I had the chance to scan my system for files that could be causing this issue, my computer shut down and now it will not boot. When I try to start, it just says that the start up disk is full and sits at a blue screen. I tried booting in safe mode and booting from the disk and running disk utility, but nothing is working. Suggestions??? I need help on how to actually get this thing running and then how to find the files causing the issue??? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
You don't have a virus. That's the Windows way of thinking. When you have a problem with a Mac, a "virus" should be the last thing you suspect, not the first.
To stop the "Are you sure..." warning, from the Finder menu bar, select Finder > Preferences > Advanced and uncheck the box labeled Show warning before emptying the Trash. You'll then get no warning before the Trash is emptied, and once it's emptied, there's no undo.
To delete locked files, hold down the option key and select Finder > Empty Trash from the menu bar. -
My Start Up Disk is Full and I can get no acces to anything when the computer starts
The computer turns on and I can get no acces to anything. It display a message "Your Start Up Disk is Full" and comes to a white screen. I can only move the mouse but there is nowhere to click.
How can I delete any files, so the computer can come back to life?? Is there any way I can acces those files??
I'm using 250GB and this Mac has 500GB total memory.Supposedly one can hold the Shift key down while booting (Safe Mode) and that's supposed to allow one to boot the machine when the startup disk is full.
Step by Step to fix your Mac
If that works, then use a storage drive (not TimeMachine) to move excessive files too likely starting with Movies (large and easy) or iTunes supscirptions downloads which have gotten out of control.
Most commonly used backup methods
Another method is to create a boot drive on a external drive, this then will allow one to option key boot the computer and remove files off of the internal drive, allowing the free space needed for OS X to swap stuff to the drive and operate.
Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive
Now for some reason it takes rebooting the original drive to get OS X to recognize there is free space available again, so reboot the machine normally (no Shift key). Just saying that because you may be wondering how come it does't register when you delete stuff later. -
Hello, I have the alarm Start up disk is full. I have cleared everything, I have removed all the movies from itune. But when I check via the apple icon , About this mac and then more info and then storage, the graphic shows movies still at 178 GB. How can I clear that so that I can free my start up disc?
Thank you.Dear Allan,
Here is the status of my storage.,
Cheers -
I keep getting an error message stating 'my start up disk is full'
Hello. I am a new mac user with a macbook with 120 gb. I was copying my itunes over to my mac from my ipod when I got the message 'start up disk is full' I am not sure if I understand..how can my disk be full when I just purchased my computer and don't really have anything on it. How can I fix this and why is it happening? Surely, I don't need more memory.
I really would appreciate any advice.
thank you,
Lena
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.9)Download this and scan your hard drive. It will show you what exactly is take up all the space.
WhatSize >>
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
An Apple User Group
Note: I receive no compensation for product endorsements. -
Macbook air won't turn on and the screen will go white. It says that the start up disk is full. HELP
When I turn my macbook air on it sends me a message saying that my start up disk is full and that I have to free up some space. When I log in into my account the screen will go white and I won't be able to do anything. I tried to restart my computer in safemode holding down the shift key while restarting it but it won't work. HELP PLEASE.
If you could boot from an external OS X boot drive then you could delete some files. You probably don't have such a HDD/Thumb drive but a Genius at an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider could help you. This is not a hardware repair so a Genius should not need to charge you for this service.
Genius reservation http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/ .
or find an Apple Authorized Service Provider https://locate.apple.com/country
After it is healthy again I would buy a new external HDD and use Carbon Copy Clone or Super Duper! to create a bootable clone. Keeping a clone current is also an excellent backup methodology in addition to Time Machine.
Commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection -
My iMac does not start up as usual. I now get a ' start up disk is full. You need to make space available on your start up disk by deleting files' message.
I am able to key my log on password however I just get the purple galaxy screen with no desktop.
If I try to use the keyboard I get a tone when pressing the keys.
Has worked perfectly well up until I got this dusk full message.
Can anyone help please. ThanksYour going to have to follow the Data Recovery Efforts page here to be able to access your drive and remove files without booting the computer.
You can't open the iMac so you will need OS X booted from a external drive or via Firewire Target Disk Mode using another Mac.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3172
I would concentrate on Movies as this is a big source of large files to free up room.
Read Storage Drive here
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
If you not handy with computers, your going to have to hire a local service or provide the info above to someone you know who can, it's not easy. -
How do i solve the 'start up disk almost full' problem?
when i turn on my macbook air, it comes up with a warning message that says 'start up disk almost full' and that i need to clear some space, how do i do this?
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 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 asBackups. 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. Reboot and it should go away.
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 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.
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.
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. -
How can I find where this came from? - start up disk almost full
Hi, my mac began saying this to me today "Start up disk almost full"
So I began deleting files. I deleted a lot via DiskWave.
But now Diskwave says I have enough space but my mac sure doesn't.
What do I do? What's all that 'other' stuff and where can I find it?
Thanks in advance!For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
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. Type carefully and then press return. 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. -
Using Iomega for storage/backup, but start up disk still full..???
Purchased Iomega for Storage/Backup for my MacBook (this is my 1st MacBook, was a PC user for years). I am an avid scrapbooker and of course I have tons of photos on my Mac. My hard drive/start up disk is full. I have 1.41 TB left on my Iomega. Why is my hard drive/start up disk full? What am I doing wrong? This Grandma is not too old to learn something new....please help.....
Another thing to note; if you use iPhoto (or Aperture) for your scrapbook photos, any trashed photos will have to be separately emptied from within the application. Emptying the main trash (on desktop) will not empty iPhoto's (or Aperture's) trash.
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