Startup Disk
October 15, 2006 11:22 AM Subscribe
Mac: Startup Disk almost full?
What does this precisely mean? I'm new to Mac's so....
What does this precisely mean? I'm new to Mac's so....
Monolingual is an app that will delete unnecessary language files, freeing up ~2GB of space on your (startup) disk
posted by misterbrandt at 11:44 AM on October 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by misterbrandt at 11:44 AM on October 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
You can salvage a little space by quitting applications you're not using, or applications that have been running constantly for a long time.
But then follow joeblough's advice and burn things off to CD or DVD. If you've been working on big iMovie or iDVD projects now's the time to start cleaning up.
posted by bcwinters at 12:06 PM on October 15, 2006
But then follow joeblough's advice and burn things off to CD or DVD. If you've been working on big iMovie or iDVD projects now's the time to start cleaning up.
posted by bcwinters at 12:06 PM on October 15, 2006
File system performance will really suck if your disk is more than 99% full. So if you have a 100 GB disk, don't try to use that last gig. Mac OSX disk performance is pretty craptacular on a good day, no need to make it worse.
posted by ryanrs at 12:07 PM on October 15, 2006
posted by ryanrs at 12:07 PM on October 15, 2006
To see your current disk usage, select the disk (it'll be on the desktop) and then press ⌘I. Or you can open a Terminal and type: df -h /
posted by ryanrs at 12:17 PM on October 15, 2006
posted by ryanrs at 12:17 PM on October 15, 2006
There are some utility applications that can help you determine just what is taking up a lot of disk space, which in the end can help you manage how much free space you have.
Go to macupdate.com or versiontracker.com and look for:
WheresTheFreeSpace
or
JDiskReport
both have visual interfaces and also allow you to see directory views.
Good luck freeing up space!!
posted by kuppajava at 1:47 PM on October 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
Go to macupdate.com or versiontracker.com and look for:
WheresTheFreeSpace
or
JDiskReport
both have visual interfaces and also allow you to see directory views.
Good luck freeing up space!!
posted by kuppajava at 1:47 PM on October 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
I had a particularly weird "startup disk almost full" problem -- it was full but it shouldn't have been. A third-party keyboard had a badly-written driver which wrote a line to a log file ten times a second or something, so there was a 23GB file in a hidden folder.
But in the general case, if you've got, let's say, a fifty gig hard disk and you've got twenty gigs of video and ten gigs of music and ten gigs of photos, then it's pretty easy to see why you're about to run out.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:53 PM on October 15, 2006
But in the general case, if you've got, let's say, a fifty gig hard disk and you've got twenty gigs of video and ten gigs of music and ten gigs of photos, then it's pretty easy to see why you're about to run out.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:53 PM on October 15, 2006
It's so obvious that it's not often suggested, but people often miss this:
Empty your trash!
Finder menu -> Empty Trash
posted by Mwongozi at 4:37 PM on October 15, 2006
Empty your trash!
Finder menu -> Empty Trash
posted by Mwongozi at 4:37 PM on October 15, 2006
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this can sometimes sneak up on you as the virtual memory file grows over time.
just delete some old files you don't care about or back them up to DVD or whatever.
posted by joeblough at 11:35 AM on October 15, 2006