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User profile for user: M_diss
M_diss Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

"Your start up disk is almost full" message when more than 20GB are available. Something is eating up my ssd space

Hi, thanks for reading. I own a MacBookPro12,1 running El Capitan and I'm coming across this issue: my SSD has 20GB of free space available but somehow after a while using the computer the startup disk almost full alert appears and the free space is only 39,4 MB (always the same value).


I'm getting the available space info from the finder -> get info on Macintosh HD and also using GrandPerspective.


Any ideas about what is going on? TimeMachine maybe? It is frustrating as when this happens some applications crash causing the loss of data / changes.


Thanks in advanced,


Cheers!


M

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 12, 2019 7:32 AM

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User profile for user: VikingOSX
VikingOSX
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
116,777 points

Jun 20, 2019 8:11 AM in response to M_diss

If you are copying large amounts of files from your boot drive to an external drive, between network share, or even between two external drives — then temporary storage is required on your boot drive and this can eat you out of drive space depending on the size of the copy operation and available space.


You will need alot more than 20GB if you are attempting a macOS update, as you have the size of the installer, the temporary storage that the installer needs, the storage that the installer consumes in the process, and the System caches that are not always cleared after the installation has finished.

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User profile for user: M_diss
M_diss Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Jun 20, 2019 9:02 AM in response to VikingOSX

Hi VikingOSX,


Many thanks for the helping hand but that is not the case. I must say that this was my first thought as I use quite often the Transmit FTP client. Now I activated the  View > Show View Options > Calculate all sizes in Finder and I'll check if something changes considerably next time I get a Disk Almost Full alert.


Cheers!


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"Your start up disk is almost full" message when more than 20GB are available. Something is eating up my ssd space

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