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Startup disc is "too full". But not really.

My Mac is telling me that my startup disc is too full. But I still have 542GB of storage UNUSED in my 750GB disk! What do I need to do to keep that message from telling me it's too full. And more importantly, why is it confused?


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MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 16, 2013 6:01 PM

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8 replies

Oct 17, 2013 2:05 PM in response to AroseArtist

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

First, empty the Trash.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 -o -acl \) 2> /dev/null | wc -l

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). The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

The output of this command, on a line directly below what you entered, will be a number such as "41." Please post it in a reply.

Nov 16, 2013 10:07 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hello, I've been having the exact same issue. 500 GB HD, more than 300 empty. I have checked this with OmniDiskSweeper, which gives me the same number.


I have copied the line you gave in Terminal, which gave me the numer 79 as a result. I have no idea what to do next.


Also, while Terminal was busy, it repeatedly showed me the message "Low Disk Space. Terminal has detected that the system disk is running low on swap space. Scrollback buffers may automatically be trimmed to conserve memory. OK"


Help would be much appreciated.

Feb 12, 2014 2:08 PM in response to AroseArtist

Same issue here. I have a 500 GB HD, with about 127 GB used, with 4 GB of RAM. Running 10.9.1


Today, I suddenly started to get this error message: "Your startup disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your startup disk by deleting files."


I've Googled for solutions and tried various fixes. Examples:


After emptying the trash and fixing permissions (and rebooting) I downloaded and ran Omnisweep (from root using Terminal). No huge file identified. But then I saw a new message: "Terminal has detected that the system disk is running low on swap space. Scrollback buffers may automatically be trimmed to conserve memory."


I also found and deleted a "recovered messages" folder in Mail (and rebooted).


Activity Monitor says: Physical Memory: 4GB, Memory Msed: 3.99 GB, Virtual Memory: 4.94 GB, Swap Used: 0 bytes. That Terminal command mentioned above gave me the number 214.


Oh, I also deleted user caches.


No joy—still getting the error.

May 10, 2014 12:45 AM in response to iheartapple1970

Even can't open safe mode I tried thousand times.


I have MBP late 2011 13"

The issue now is the active disc that contains OS is full with no single byte free and doesn't mount or load OS to computer run and always a grey bar appears upon starting the PC.

I tried to increase Macintosh HD space by partition but it says you can not change because the disc is locked. When tried to unlock disc from disc utility and than startup disc the PC stands still or hangs up.

I don't have Mac OS disc or any apple shop in me area.

Please help me as soon as possible

Thanks indeed

Can't go to safe mode

Can't unlock startup disc

Can't modify oration , says disc is locked

Startup disc is "too full". But not really.

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