If you run heavy applications like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop, you may have encountered the “Scratch disk full” error. This means that the hard drive used as a scratch disk is running out of space.
When the disk is full, your Mac lacks adequate space to run processes. As a result, you’re likely to experience freezes and crashes. It also takes time for your Mac to complete specific actions, open apps, or even boot.
Here is what you need to know.
Why Clean Your Scratch Disk
A scratch disk is a hard disk that temporarily stores data while applications run. If you have not configured a scratch disk for a particular application on your Mac, the application will use your macOS hard drive as the primary scratch disk.
Over time, the disk will capture and save lots of data like temporary files and cache with every project or task you complete on your applications. When the disk is full and can’t store more data, you start experiencing the “Scratch Disk Full” error notifications.
This is accompanied by app freezes and crashes, hurting your productivity and slowing your progress. As you probably know, there’s nothing as frustrating as working on a slow computer or an app that keeps crashing. Hence, the need to clean your scratch disk.
How to Clean it
When you experience the error, there are a few things you can do to fix it. Here are the fixes you should try:
- Empty Photoshop cache: If you use Photoshop, it offers a feature for deleting caches. Launch Photoshop and click “Edit” on the menu bar. Hover the mouse over “Purge” and select “All” to delete all caches.
- Clear temporary files: Your application’s temporary files build up fast every time it’s used. It’s a good idea to clear them to regain some valuable space. Open Finder > Go > Go to Folder, and type “/tmp” in the search field. This will open a folder with all the temporary files. Go through them and delete those you don’t need.
- Clean your disk space: Check your disk storage and try to clean the disk to get as much space as possible. Go to System Settings > General > Storage. If you have old files or files you rarely use, you can upload them to cloud storage or transfer them to an external drive to create space.
- Free up some RAM: Less processing power can contribute to poor performance of apps, leading to crashes that fill the scratch disk with temporary files. So freeing up some RAM can help. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor. If there are apps or processes you don’t need, close them to save up RAM. You can also go to the Terminal and write “sudo purge”, which will remove any unused tools and apps from your RAM.
These steps are manual — you can also use Mac cleaning tools to create more space on your Mac. Be sure to pick a tool that’s safe, easy to use, and effective.
Change the Scratch Disk
if your current scratch disk doesn’t have enough space, you can switch it with another one. Ideally, you want to go for an external device, or maybe secondary storage on your computer. The way you switch it is you go to Photoshop > Preferences and here you choose Scratch Disks. After that, you must tick the checkbox to select what scratch disk you want to use. Press Ok and then restart Photoshop for these changes to take action.
Reset the Photoshop Preferences
Resetting the Preferences can be a great way to help you clear the scratch disk quickly. Go to the Preferences > General and then select Reset Preferences on Quit. Doing that will reset everything and you won’t receive any scratch disk error. Ideally, you want to leave this as a last-resort solution, but it can be a very effective one!
Think about purchasing a new drive
Acquiring a new drive is a great idea, since the scratch disk issue comes either due to lack of storage or RAM. Buying an SSD specifically for Photoshop so you can use it as a scratch disk will help solve any problems!
Keep Your Mac Running Optimally
A build-up of files on your Mac can result in poor performance and regular crashes. You can avoid such situations by cleaning your scratch disk regularly, and this post shares tips you can use to regain more space, improve performance, and avoid nagging error pop-ups.
