Software :: Temporary Files Re-appeared After Deleting - Startup Disk Full
Dec 23, 2007
I keep getting the "Startup Disk is almost full" error message even though I know I had plenty of available memory. After searching the forums here, I downloaded Cocktail and cleared the caches, logs, and temporary files. I made hidden files visible, and I found in /private/var/tmp tons of files have been written taking up every bit of available space, even after running Cocktail's chron. A sample filename is 476deede776c8. I deleted these files, rebooted my computer, and I had the space back. BUT, this morning, when I started up, the memory disappeared again and these type of files were again gobbling up my disk space.
I booted from the system install disk to run disk utility. It says my hard disk is fine, but I can't repair permissions. Something about no packets or invalid packets.
I just went through the motions again with Cocktail and deleted the over 5Gb of temporary files, and so far, so good, but what can I do to stop this from continuing to happen?
These problems started after trying to download some printer drivers from HP's website, which was so slow I halted the downloads and cancelled them. I tried installing the one driver that downloaded, and onto a different user than the root system, as per HP's recommendation. This meant I had to use the system install disk to reset my passwords because my password wasn't working. I don't know if any of these actions caused the problem, are part of the problem, or are a separate problem. I can't afford to spend an hour a day, 2 or 3 times a day, erasing these pesky files so I can use my boot drive. Any advice, specific directions, and/or explanations are desperately needed.
I am running Mac OS 10.3.9 on a PowerMac G4 450Mhz, 800Mb RAM. I was using Firefox when the problems started.
I have been using iphoto with my nikon d5100. I just changed from shooting in basic jpeg form to trying to shoot in raw.and then my computer started acting up. and no matter how much stuff I get rid of it keeops saying that it is full...
MacBook Air, bought last December, transferred files at that time from another Mac, now when I switch-on the I get a message "Start-up disk is full", but I've only 1GB of files!
This might be a "silly" question but here it is: I get this message: your startup disk is full. Do I need to delete files? What there is to do ? Where to look? Is it normal, my Macbook is getting really hot?
I had Wine for a long time on my computer, and it worked well, loved it! However, when I got Steam for Windows through, and got *one* game on it, my storage started to disappear!!!! I have a Macbook Air with 128 GB, and half of that was used up. I got Steam and a game that was about 1,300 bytes. After I deleted the game file through steam, my storage went down... I decided to delete Steam, and it went down more... I currently have 16 GB left. Whenever I delete things, my storage left goes down more, or seems to.
my mac had a lot of unused files so I downloaded "Disc Inventory X" to clean up my hard drive. I start searching using the app and I deleteted like a good 40 gigs. Then I notice a folder called ".Trash" that has everything that I recently deleted in it! I also notice that .Trash is one of the few folders where you can't delete the contents. how do you permanently delete files so they actually get deleted and not moved into a different place where you can't delete them? And how do you delete all the files in .Trash?
My MacBook pro keeps telling me my startup disk is full. I've tried searching and browsing to figure out where my startup disk is so I can figure out how it got full and delete stuff... but I can't find it.
I've suddenly been getting a pop up message that reads "Your startup disk is almost full - you need to make more space available on your start up disk by deleting files"
My hard disk is 320 GB & I've only used 111 GB so far so why is this message popping up & what can I do about it without deleting my precious files?
I'm a fairly naive mac user and got my friend to instal my new harddrive.
It's big, with 320GB.
However, he set up a startupdisk partition, with a size of 20GB, called OSX.
For some reason this is now full and slowing down my MAC which is particularly annoying as I have college essays to submit very soon!
I've checked what is on my startupdisk and it is as follows:
Private 8GB Applications 5GB Library 3.5GB System 2.3GB
I don't understand what this means but I have copied applications, library and system to my HD and tried to delete off startupdisk but it won't let me. say it is require by mac.
I have an external hard drive also, but can I set up my external as a backup startup disk, and if so, how? If not, how and what do I need to delete from my startup disk to open some space?
I have a new Mac Book Pro and have loaded a few programs on it ..but do not have much else on it...and now its telling me that my sratch disk is full and will not let me do much of anything on it....
Info: MacBookro, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Just switching from PC to Macs
I have an Imac with Snow Leopard but my startup disk is full; I tried the System Disk to start it up and I also ran the disk utility but nothing. Any ideas on how to acces the hard drive to delete some files and free up space for the startup? Or what should I do to get it to start?
Info:iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.1)
I have a Macbook. It is telling me that the Startup Disk is full. I have dumped the trash and went through my file dumping what I can. I realy do not have much on. I do have movie,music, and Lots of pictures? Do I need to purchase more Startup Disk? Where do I get that?
Info: MacBook (13-inch Early 2008), Just up grade Memory to 4 GB
My startup disk is full. When I look in information 'About this Mac', I see that this disk is almost completely filled with 'Other' (173,43 GB!°. And I cannot find out what 'Other' might be! clean this 'Other' and make memoryspace available ?
I keep getting error messages saying my startup disk is full, so I delete a bunch of things, look in about this Mac, it says I have multiple GB available and then over time they disappear and I get the error message again. earlier today I had 8 GB, they all disappeared, so I deleted a big iphoto album and got a new 13 GB, now 45 minutes later it is down to 10GB....
Info:MacBook Air (11-INCH, MID 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
My MacBook Pro gets a message when I first start up on my log in page. When I then go to log in i just get a blank grey screen. Any clues as to what I can do. I've been downloading quite a lot of TV shows recently from ITunes and was going to move them to a external HD but I cant see anything.
Something is going bad with my computer. Recently I have been getting the startup disk is almost full, but it is not. I have over a gig left and have tossed a bunch of stuff. I feel it was an email or something that was downloaded that is causing it to eat up all the memory. I have also done the Disk Utility and fixed it a couple times in a row. what is happening or what I can do to put my finger on it?
I have a problem with my macbook (OS X Snow Leopard) that just occurred today:
I ran a few itunes updates (amongst others a 1.6 GB navi software) and my startup disk turned out to be almost full. I tried to solve the problem by shifting movies and music to an external hard drive but suddenly my mac froze and I had to restart.
Since this moment, when logging in a am informed that I need to free disk space (Start up disk is full) but this is not possible because my dock is missing and all I get is a blank desktop (no clock, WLAN, Battery symbols in the upper right corner). All I can do is access safari and Qucktime over the recent items list and open preferences (They can still play movies and surf the web). The apple Logo in the upper left corner is still there, allowing access to the basic commands like shut down, log out, etc.
I tried rebooting with the OSX disc to access disk utility, ran disk restore and disk verify. Everything seems to be allright, I just can't erase data and free up space. The terminal commands don't work either, all I'm being given is this command line: -bash-3.2#. Any command I enter is "unknown".
I was using my Macbook awhile ago and I got a popup message saying my startup disk is full, even though I have 84.05 gigs available. I figured it was a fluke and ignored it. A bit later, I was doing some stuff in Finder and noticed at the bottom where it says my drive's free space, it suddenly went from 84.05 GB free, to zero free, gave me the error message, and went back up to 84.05 gigs free, and it's done this a couple times...and the only thing I was doing was copying a 3 KB text file from a thumb drive. Anyone know WTF is up with that? It definitely is strange and I've never seen it before. I just ran a Verify in Disk Utility and everything checks out, no errors
I ran omnidisk sweeper and it shows I only have 39GB of used space. However, when I check the info on the startup disk it shows that I only have 300mb-5GB left depending on the day. I have deleted all unnecessary files that I can. I can't really find anything else to delete. I only have a couple programs installed that are pretty basic like word and excel.
Info: iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have a message saying my Startup Disk is full on my MacBook Pro. Saying 0 GB free. At the moment we use Dropbox for most files, there are a lot of emails in my inbox but apart from that I don't understand why no space is left
Info: iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
