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denisecolorado

Q: start up disk is full warning

start up disk is full warning

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 9, 2016 10:17 PM

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Q: start up disk is full warning

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  • by theratter,

    theratter theratter Jun 9, 2016 10:32 PM in response to denisecolorado
    Level 4 (3,917 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 9, 2016 10:32 PM in response to denisecolorado

    How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive

     

      1. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.

      2. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.

      3. Also, see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.

      4. See Where did my Disk Space go?.

      5. Be sure to Empty the Trash to recover the space.

      6. Replace the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.

      7. Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

     

    [Permission to use part or all of the above has been granted by Kappy, exclusively, to theratter.]

  • by dwb,

    dwb dwb Jun 10, 2016 6:37 AM in response to denisecolorado
    Level 7 (24,226 points)
    Notebooks
    Jun 10, 2016 6:37 AM in response to denisecolorado

    The error message indicates exactly what is wrong: your computer’s hard drive has filled up or is nearly full. The important question is why. If you are lucky performing a Safe Mode restart will temporarily resolve the problem. To restart in Safe mode, restart the computer and then press and hold the shift key until the Apple icon appears. Your computer will start slower than usual because disk utility is checking the drive. One thing that happens during the Safe Start is that various cache (temporary) files are deleted or trimmed. This often creates enough free space to let your computer restart.

     

    If this does let you restart the computer you’ll need to immediately look for files to move onto an external hard drive or delete. Apple recommends that the startup drive have about 10-15GB unused so that the operating system and programs you use have room to create cache files so this is the goal you are working toward.

     

    I have a couple rules I recommend:

    1. Never touch anything in the System or Library folders. Those are Apple’s OS folders and if you don’t know what you are doing you can delete files that will keep the computer from running
    2. You should concentrate on what is in your own account - your folders. However you should only delete files from your Library folder if you know what you are doing. You can damage your own account if you aren’t careful.
    3. You may delete files from the Applications folder but some cannot be deleted because they are Apple programs. Also while some programs take up lots of space, most really don't
    4. The files that take up the most space are media: video, music, and digital photos. For example, deleting one movie will free up more space than deleting all my word processing files.
  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jun 10, 2016 7:26 AM in response to denisecolorado
    Level 10 (208,000 points)
    Applications
    Jun 10, 2016 7:26 AM in response to denisecolorado

    For information about the Other category in the Storage display, please see this support article. If the 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

    In Photos:

              File Show Recently Deleted Delete All

    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—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. 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. A common waste of space is old iTunes backups of mobile devices. As illustrated in this support article, select the Devices tab in the iTunes preferences window, select the backups you want to delete, and click Delete Backups. Keep at least one backup of each device that you still use.

    You can, if you wish, 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. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 ("Mountain Lion") and later versions.

    IMPORTANT: This comment is neither a recommendation nor an endorsement of any third-party software. You must always do your own research to determine whether unfamiliar software is safe and useful. Don't take anyone's word for it, including mine.

    Deleting files inside a photo or iTunes library will corrupt the library. Changes to such a 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 the app 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.

    security execute-with-privileges /A*/OmniDiskSweeper.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

    Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one 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 and start typing the name.

    Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password.

    The application window will open behind other open windows. When you scan a volume, the window will eventually show 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.