How do I free up storage space on HD - as the warning in FCPX says to do?

Question

Level 1

9 points

How do I free up storage space on HD - as the warning in FCPX says to do?

I am running FCPX and need to render and finish my project.

I keep getting this warning popup "The storage device 'Macintosh HD' is almost full - Free up storage space and click Continue, or cancel the background tasks"

It appears that I have space on that drive, but I would free up space if I knew how to find access and know what I can delete or move.

Please help - I am on a deadline and this is preventing me from moving forward with my FCP project.

Thank you,

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), FCP 10.2

Posted on Nov 16, 2015 8:24 PM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

149,088 points

Nov 16, 2015 9:36 PM in response to tptone

You would be served much much better by storing large libraries (photos, music and movies) on external HD's. If you continue and use up all your HD space you will lock up your system and have a very difficult time accessing it again.

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Answer 2

tptone Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 16, 2015 9:54 PM in response to rkaufmann87

I think I am storing my large files to the many external drives I have attached to my iMac.

On my old computer I could open my Hard Drives folders and SEE what was on those drives on the internal Mac HD I cannot seem to SEE what is taking up all my space.

Could you walk me through the process of seeing and being able to move the files that keep clogging up my internal drive?

Is it Photos, FCPX, etc. that are taking up all the space?

Or applications?

Thank you so much for your help and quick response.

I am stuck and have a deadline to complete this video project.

My 1.12 TB Fusion Drive says it primary filled with the Blue 'Other' files, Apps 25 gb, Audio 9. gb, Photos 9. gb, movies 4 gb, backups 24 mb.

How do I SEE the OTHER files and decide to delete and then reset my preferences so that things aren't being saved there, but to externals?

Thanks!

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Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,656 points

Nov 16, 2015 11:19 PM in response to tptone

Additionally, in order to render video properly, any app (including FCP X) needs at least as much empty hard drive space as you have temporary files in your project. When doing a one hour HD video project, I can easily amass 150 GB of temp files, so I need at the very least that much empty hard drive space - to be safe, I actually maintain more empty space than that.

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Answer 4

tptone Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 16, 2015 11:22 PM in response to babowa

That makes sense to me.

I talked to support and they had me trash some files - and reset the PRAM to flush the cache, but I still am getting the out of memory warning.

I tried going to All Files and deleting some plugins I have there, but they don't seem to delete to the trash as I would like - perhaps they are locked?

How do you unlock them?

I appreciate your help - just feeling stuck here

Thanks

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