Probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to clean up your Mac to free up space is to utilize an automated cleaner such as Mac repair app. Automated mac cleaners are designed to clean up your disk from time to time, checking for unnecessary and outdated junk, caches, files, programs, backups, language packs, and logs, among others. Yes, a software to easily free up space on startup disks of Macintosh. Yodot Mac Cleaner tool completely deletes junk files on Mac disk with one deep scan. The application effectively removes all unwanted files from device to free up memory. And also empties plug-ins and other login items including extensions of applications.
If you’re looking for solutions on how to fix ‘startup disk full’ error on your Mac or simply want to clean or optimize your storage space, you’ve come to the right place. Although the newest models of Apple computers are now equipped with relatively large hard drives, some users still find themselves dealing with the startup disk full error. It is because pre-installed programs can already take a significant portion of disk space and over time, different kinds of files will gradually fill the remaining space. Sooner or later, the user might receive this message:
Your disk is almost full. Save space by optimizing storage.
Sure, you can simply ignore it — just click Close and go on with your merry life. However, ignoring it over and over again will not solve the problem. You will eventually get another form of a pop-up that reads:
Your startup disk is almost full. To make more space available on your startup disk, delete some files.
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Aside from this window popping up in the most inopportune moment, such as when you’re backing up your iPhone or saving a document that you have been working on for hours already, the issue can easily escalate. Eventually, you will notice your Mac starting to run slow, which defeats the purpose of owning a fast and reliable Mac in the first place.
For those who don’t know, it’s important to note that you should have at least 15% of free startup disk space for a Mac computer to run properly. So, if you keep on ignoring the friendly reminder to optimize your storage, your Mac will not thank you for it.
What is the Startup Disk?
By default, the startup disk is what’s known as the Macintosh HD. It is the partition in Mac’s hard disk where the Mac OS itself is installed. It is also where most of your files and apps are probably stored. Essentially, the startup disk is where the Mac OS will boot from, so it needs enough space in order to do its job. Once it begins to get filled, it will try to warn you before you experience the eventual slow-down.
The First Step: Knowing What’s Eating Up Your Startup Disk Space
Basically, fixing the startup disk full error requires freeing up disk space. But before you can do that, you first need to know what’s filling up space, so you’d know what you need to get rid of. Thankfully, this can be easily done.
- First, open the Apple menu.
- Next, go to About This Mac.
- Then, choose the Storage If you have an older version of OS X, you may need to click on More Info before you can access the Storage tab.
In this tab, you will see how much of the disk is occupied by certain types of files, which are:
- iOS Files
- Apps
- Documents
- Photos
- Movies
- Audios
- Backups
- Other
Once you know which ones take up most of the space in your disk, you will know where to start the purge.
How to Free Up Storage Space on a Mac
There are several ways on how to free up space on Mac and ultimately solve the startup disk full error. Luckily for you, almost all of these can be done easily.
- Empty the trash.
This may sound elementary, but many of us forget about “taking out the trash” from our computers. When we delete files, they will go to the Trash, which serves as a holding area that you can go to in case you realize you need to recover what you deleted. However, the files in the Trash still occupy space, so you basically just moved the files to another folder. It is recommended to empty the Trash at least once a week. To do this:
- Right-click on the Trash in the dock panel.
- Select Empty Trash.
You can also open the Trash and click the Empty button found at the top right corner.
- Clear cache.
A cache file is a temporary data file created by browsers, apps, and other programs. Even if you remove or stop using an application, the cache files remain in the Cache folder and when not checked, may take up a lot of space — we’re talking about tens of gigabytes here. So, it’s recommended that you clear the cache every once in a while. The Cache folders are inside the Library. You need to look for two types of these folders:
- /Library/Caches – This is where temporary files are stored. These files don’t usually take up too much space.
- ~/Library/Caches – This is where junk files created when you run apps go.
- Delete logs.
While in the Library folder, you may also want to check the Log files, another type of temporary files. They can be found in the Logs folder. But before you delete any of them, make sure that you no longer need them.
- Remove language resources.
You are probably unaware that your Mac has 26 pre-installed dictionaries, which can be considered the most underrated space eaters. If you don’t need German, Russian, or Dutch translations, for instance, you’d want to consider deleting them along with other localisations. These can be found in the following directory:
Macintosh HD -> Users -> Your User -> Library -> Dictionaries
- Delete old iOS backups.
If it has become your habit to sync your other Apple devices with iTunes, it is possible that there are dozens of backups and they tend to take up a lot of space. To delete old backups, go to:
Library -> Application Support -> MobileSync -> Backup folder
Select old, outdated backups, then simply move them to the Trash.
- Delete unnecessary documents, photos, and other files.
You need to take a look at your Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Movies folders and decide which files you no longer need. Next, organize the files that will be left behind. You might also want to consider moving them to an external disk or taking advantage of the iCloud storage.
- Uninstall unused applications.
Applications are among the primary space takers, so it’s just logical to remove any that you haven’t used in a while and have no plans of using again. You need to remove them properly, though. Dragging and dropping them in the Trash won’t be enough. You also need to remove the cache and service files, which are found in the Library folder.
- Take out the trash again.
Once you have deleted the files and folders mentioned above, they will naturally end up in the Trash, so you will need to empty it again.
- Use an automated Mac cleaner.
Probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to clean up your Mac to free up space is to utilize an automated cleaner such as Mac repair app. Automated mac cleaners are designed to clean up your disk from time to time, checking for unnecessary and outdated junk, caches, files, programs, backups, language packs, and logs, among others. They even take care of emptying the Trash for you. These programs also recommend ways to better optimize your Mac. Tools such as Mac repair app offer a long-term solution to issues known to Mac, helping you maximize its potential as a computing beast.
Summary :
From this MiniTool article, you can know what the startup disk on your Mac is, what is taking up space on the Mac startup disk, the influence of startup disk full, and how to clear the startup disk space when the startup disk is full or your disk is almost full on your Mac.
Quick Navigation :
What Is Startup Disk on Mac?
Like a Windows startup disk, the startup disk on your Mac is the disk that saved the operating system on your Mac. It is an important disk on your computer. If the operating system on the disk is corrupted or even the startup disk is damaged, your Mac computer will not boot normally.
What Is Taking Up Space on Your Mac Startup Disk?
As you know, a Mac computer’s disk is usually not as large as a Windows computer’s disk. As of 2020, Apple has improved the disk capacity and the maximum disk size can reach up to 8TB. But they are the Pro series, which are not widely used.
Most of the time, you should not worry about the disk space issue because macOS always do work online. This will not take up much disk space. However, what’s going on if you see a pop-up alert saying Your startup disk is almost full?
At this time, you should know what is taking up space on the startup disk of your Mac and then take some measures to clear the startup disk.
The hidden website cache takes much space on the startup disk. For example, statistics show that Google Chrome can create numerous cache folders after you visit some web sites. The size of the cache for one site can even reach up to 9 GB. This is quite surprising, but it is true.
As time goes on, the free space on the startup disk becomes less and less. One day, you may receive the startup disk full alert.
Besides, when a warning of Your disk is almost full pops up, it also means that there is not enough space on your Mac. It is equal to startup disk full. Likewise, you need to remove some files to free up disk space on your Mac computer.
What Does It Mean When Your Startup Disk Is Full?
When does it mean when you receive your startup disk is almost full alert?
It has two main influences:
1. You will soon run out of space on the startup disk.
Your startup disk is almost full is an early warning for you. It reminds you of cleaning up the startup disk. However, if you continue to use your Mac without cleaning up disk space, more and more data will be saved to the startup disk. One day, your Mac will run out of space and you will not use the machine as normal.
2. Your Mac computer will run slowly.
Some of you may think that your Mac computer will not be affected when there is space in the startup disk no matter it is much or less. It is wrong.
A Mac computer can convert the available free space on the startup disk into virtual memory that you use for day-to-day operations. In theory, there should be at least 10% of free disk space for your Mac to operate. If not, your Mac computer will run slowly and even face big trouble like Mac frozen.
When the machine detects that the available space on the startup disk is insufficient, it will give you a warning. This aims to remind you it’s time to clear the startup disk on your Mac.
What should you do when your startup disk is full on your Mac? In the following part, we will show you some solutions.
How to Clear the startup Disk?
If you want to clear your Mac startup disk, you need to delete the unnecessary files on it. Before doing this, you can check the storage space on your Mac.
How to Check the Storage Space on Your Mac?
- Click the Apple menu from the top-left corner of the screen.
- Click About This Mac from the drop-down list.
- Switch to the Storage section.
After these three steps, you can see the storage information of your Mac disk, including the files’ types, the free space on the drive, and more.
If your Mac Startup disk is full, you can do these things to free up disk space:
How to Clean the Startup Disk on Your Mac?
- Remove the App Cache from your Mac.
- Empty Trash.
- Delete the unnecessary Time Machine backup snapshots.
- Delete browser cache.
- Remove language packs.
- Use Startup Disk Full Fixer.
Tip 1: Remove the App Cache from Your Mac
The app cache files are necessary when you want to speed up processes. Once you complete the process, the cache files become useless. But these cache files will stay on the startup disk for a long time unless you manually delete them. When they are useless, they are junk files. To clean up your Mac startup disk, you need to remove them from the machine.
- Go to Finder > Go > Go to Folder.
- Type ~/Library/Caches.
- Go into each folder and then delete the files in it. You can also choose to only delete the files that take up the most space.
- You can repeat the above three steps for /Library/Caches to remove the App cache.
Tip 2: Empty Trash
When you delete files from your Mac, they will be moved to Trash. The files on Trash also occupy space on your Mac startup disk. As long as you are sure that you don’t need to use these files anymore, you can empty Trash to free up disk space.
To do this job, you just need to open Trash and then click the Empty button on the top-right side to remove files from your Mac. Since then, there will be more available disk space on your Mac.
Tip 3: Delete the Unnecessary Time Machine Backup Snapshots
Most people would like to use Time Machine to back up their Mac files to an external hard drive. You may think that the backup files are save to the external hard drive. But that’s not all. During the Mac data process, the local snapshots also automatically start once every 24 hours. That’s right. The snapshots are saved to your Mac, taking up disk space.
You can delete the unnecessary Time Machine backup snapshots to release space on the startup disk.
- Open Finder.
- Go to Go > Utilities.
- Double-click Terminal to open it.
- Type sudo tmutil disablelocal into Terminal, and press Enter.
Do you know how to delete Time Machine backups on your Mac computer? In this post, we will show you different cases and different methods.
Tip 4: Delete Browser Cache
Every time you visit a new web site using your web browser, some cache files will be created and saved to your Mac disk. This can help you to quickly a previous page again. But these files can also use up your disk space. So, you can delete these browser cache files to release more space on your Mac:
- Open your web browser.
- Click the History tab and then select Clear browsing data.
- Select the cache files you want to delete like Cookies, site data, Cached images and files.
- Choose how far back you want to delete
- Click the Clear browsing data button to delete the selected cache files.
Tip 5: Remove Language Packs
Most apps contain language packs (which are also known as localization files). These packs allow you to switch between languages when using the app. They are useful, but you need to admit that you only need one or two languages. The rest language packs just waste your disk space. You can choose to delete them:
- Open Applications.
- Right-click an app and then select Show Package Contents.
- Click Contents.
- Click Resources.
- Delete the language packs you don’t need to use. The pack files are ending in .Iproj.
- Repeat these steps for all other apps on your Mac.
Tip 6: Use Startup Disk Full Fixer
Startup Disk Full Fixer is the best free app for you to perform a quick Mac disk cleanup. It can help you to get more free storage space in less than a minute. You can go to the Mac App Store to free download this application. Then, you can open it and use it to clean up your startup disk to get rid of the low disk space warning. It is a safe program. You can feel free to use it.
How to Free up Disk Space on Your Mac?
Your disk is almost full is another alert that prompts you to clear disk space on your Mac computer. We have published a related article to free up disk space on Mac: How to Clear Disk Space on Mac and Recover Mac Data?
If you have some other good ideas to release disk space on Mac, you can share them with us in the comment. We will appreciate that.
How To Free Up Space On Mac Startup Disk
If You Delete Some Important Files on Your Mac by Mistake
As you can see, it is a file deletion process when you clear the startup disk on your Mac. During the process, you may delete some of your important files by mistake. Once these files are permanently deleted from your Mac computer, you will be unable to restore them from Trash. If you want to retrieve them, you can try the free Mac data recovery software: Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.
This software has a trial edition. You can use it to scan the Mac disk you want to recover data from and then check whether it can find the files you want to rescue. If yes, you can upgrade it to a full edition and then use it to recover all your needed files to a suitable location. You can go to the MiniTool download center to get this trial edition.
1. Open this software.
2. Select the data types you want to restore. If you want to recover all, you can turn on the button for Recover Everything.
3. Click the Next button to continue.
4. This software will list all the drives it can detect. Then, you need to select the drive you want to recover from. If you want to perform a deep scan, you need to switch the button for Deep Scan to ON.
5. Click the Scan button to start the scanning process.
How Do I Free Up Space On My Mac Startup Disk
6. When the scanning process ends, you can see the scan results. By default, these files are list by Classic List. There are two other lists including File List and Deleted List. If you only need to recover the deleted files, you can switch to Deleted List and then find your needed items.
7. This software allows you to preview files. You can just double-click on one file to preview it and confirm whether it is your needed file.
8. If you are sure this software finds your needed files, you can go to MiniTool official site to get a license of an advanced edition to upgrade this software. After that, you can select files and then save them to a suitable folder. Here, you need to know that the destination folder should not be the original one. Otherwise, the deleted files could be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
Bottom Line
When your startup disk is full or you see the alert of your disk is almost full on your Mac, you can just try the methods mentioned in this article to free up disk space and remove the warning. If you mistakenly delete important files, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac to get them back.
Should you have any related issues, you can let us know in the comment. You can also contact us via [email protected].
Startup Disk Full FAQ
