Macbook says "Startup Disk is full" but it isn't full

24.5 MB is not much. On your drive most here say you should have at least 31 GB free so OSX works correctly.

Read things in RAM and Hard drive space.

Here's Freeing up Disk Space.

DALE

I've seen this issue before, it has to do with your mail program incorrectly trying to save a file over and over again which eventually fills the drive. The best way to find out where all the taken up space is to use finder and click the word "go" on the top of the screen.

Go to "computer". And go into the Mac HD. Then go into the "users" folder. from there, choose the home folder.

Once inside the home folder start right clicking the folders and choosing "get info". This window will show you the size each folder is taking up on your hard drive. Most likely your "library" folder is taking up the significant chunk.

Verify it is the mail issue I think it is by using get info to find the source of the taken up space.

I believe your culprit will be in your library folder, then mail folder, and In here we need to find and delete the recovered messages and an offlinecache file

delete OfflineCache" at: "~/Library/Mail/(your email address here)/.OfflineCache

And delete "Recovered Files" Mailbox folder at "~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/Recovered Messages (your email address here).mbox

Lastly, restart your computer.

Great! Happy computing!!

I've been having a very similar issue since I "upgraded" to Mountain Lion but I'm not sure it has exactly the same cause. Every once in a while, I'll attempt to save a document in MS Word (2011) and I'll get the error message below:

I've tried all the options listed on the error message, but none of them work. I've closed out of all my windows, and tried saving the document to a small jump drive or my 250 GB external hard drive, but I keep getting the same error message. What I usually end up having to do is copying all of the text of my document into an (unformatted) email, sending it to myself, and then pasting and re-formatting it in Word after I restart.

I followed your instructions above to check the size of each folder in my user account (the only user account on a 128 GB Macbook Air) and the folder sizes were roughy what I expected. I have about 1.3 GB in My Documents, about 100 MB in Downloads, and everything else is negligible (I keep media on an external hard drive).

My disk memory shows that I have about 100 GB free space:

Do you have any idea why it would suddenly think I have no room on anything I plug in?

Are you able to copy and paste your doc into text edit and save that to the Mac HD? Or is it only MS Word that gives you this error message?

Hi, thanks for responding! I didn't know what Text Edit was (this is my first mac) but I'll definitely try that next time it happens. I've only gotten the error message from MS Word, but that's because the only other program I've been using when it happens is Safari. Next time it happens I'll try both (1) pasting the text into a new Text Edit document and saving to iCloud, and (2) creating a new MS Excel document and saving to the Mac HD.

Enander,

I am having the same issue but can't get to the file you are suggesting to delete. This is a screen shot of my folders:

Is your disk 100% full or almost full? If you can manage a few MBs, a free program called omnidisksweeper can scan your drive and lead you to the source of large files. It's very easy to use and helped me find what was taking up the most space.

Jawinter: your issue is actually totally different from the original poster in this thread, and as you've discovered, actually has nothing to do with free disk space. It's connected with the Undo feature in Word, which keeps many backup copies of the file open. Check out this long thread on the Microsoft forum. Solutions include turning off Track Changes (if it's running) and copying and pasting the file text into a different file.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/disk-full-and -much-more-misery/e9dabe09-7392-4f67-848b-c09cb1adb364

Matt

Canozzle: you're looking in the wrong Library folder. In the Finder, click on the Go menu while holding down the Option key. You'll see a Library folder appear in that menu - that's your User Library, which is where you'll find the Mail files.

Matt

Hi,

I think I am having a similar problem, but without the similar cause. I see this in terms of storage:

but I believe it is an error. I am in medical school, and after failing to find a large mail folder or any of the other suggestions in these comments, I deleted about 75 GB worth of medical textbooks, thinking surely was the culprit. However, when I went to check the storage, I still am seeing this screen (no change for what I'd deleted, even after restarting my computer), and getting the error: full disk message. Any suggestions? 😟

Thanks!

Sarah

Do you have FileVault enabled?

I have the exact screen as Sarah, and no obvious files of any size.

Should FileVault be enabled or disabled to solve the problem?

Darlene

I have been trying to locate the mail files you mention but am getting only this when i bring up the library when holding the option key: