Stop receiving "Your disk is almost full" notification

I'm receiving a "Your disk is almost full" notification, and I'm desperate for a method to turn it off. Every time I close it, it pops back up within 10 seconds. Every time. I'm running with about 3GB of free space on a 128GB hard drive, and I'm fine with that. I've been managing for the past 3 years with 1-5 GB of free space and I have no performance issues. I just want to stop receiving the notification. Anyone know how?

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.1)

Posted on Nov 1, 2016 12:29 PM

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Posted on Jan 29, 2018 2:58 PM

I found you can change the threshold for the warning with a terminal command. Open a new terminal window and type the following command. The integer at the end is the minimum number of free GB before it will warn you about low space, so 10 GB here, set it to whatever you want.


defaults write com.apple.diskspaced minFreeSpace 10


Then run these two commands to reload the daemon (or just restart your mac)


launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist
launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist


You can also completely disable the warning with this command


launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.diskspaced.plist


Hope this works for you it fixed the issue for me 🙂


Source Silencing "Your disk is almost full" notification - Ask Different

126 replies

Jan 7, 2018 9:49 AM in response to Drew Reece

Drew, when this warning is coming up on systems that have 10+ GB free space; then it is the warning system that is wrong. OSX can work just fine with as little as 1 or 2 GB of free space, regardless of what Apple says.


As for the threshold settings for that warning to come up - It's clear that you haven't spent any time under the hood of any Unix, Linux, or DSB based operating system. There is certainly a setting somewhere in one of the system files that tells OSX at what point it should display the warning dialog.


The question is simply which file is that, and how to edit it?

Nov 1, 2016 2:40 PM in response to ngartke

When that message appears, it should not be ignored. The only way to stop it from appearing is to increase available storage space so that your Mac can continue to work normally. To learn how to do that please read macOS Sierra: Increase disk space.


macOS "Sierra" offers additional options for offsite storage. Please read Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support.

Nov 2, 2016 3:07 PM in response to ngartke

Apple have always recommended you have more free space than you seem to think is OK, this one is from 10.8…

OS X Mountain Lion: If you see a gray screen at startup

…make sure your computer has at least 1 GB of memory and 9 GB of available disk space.

Os's do not need fewer resources over time, they need more.


You need to heed the warning that the OS is throwing at you. Eventually you can lose data or get into an unbootable state. That is why there is no option to turn off the dialog.


You could be better off fitting a larger disk compared to looking for ways to circumvent the warning if the Mac supports user replaceable storage. Post the model info if you want help with that but the answer to this problem is the one that you do not want to hear – remove some data.

Nov 16, 2016 11:50 AM in response to guney can

Apples OS disagrees with your opinion — tell them your feelings on the dialog…

http://www.apple.com/feedback/


The 'defaults system' should contain the setting you claim exists, there are commands to search for functioning values…

https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPag es/man1/defaults.1.html


Unfortunately no sites have a setting listed for the disk full dialog (probably because it does not exist).

http://www.defaults-write.com, there are many others that list defaults values for OS X.


It is anoying to you because you are wrong and the answer is to free some space. Take it to an Apple Store as you clearly do not believe the sound advice already given here.

Nov 16, 2016 11:57 AM in response to guney can

macOS is a UNIX operating system, and needs 10 - 12% of total storage for the operating system to function properly — over and above swap space. Those messages that you want to turn off are from the operating system itself telling you that you have dipped into its reserved space requirements. There will be no turning those messages off until you free up sufficient storage.


This was true 25 years ago with multiple, other UNIX solutions too, and the same customer advice to free space has not changed since.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Stop receiving "Your disk is almost full" notification

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