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Disk full, but I can't delete any files because my disk is full

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Feb 26, 2023
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Please I'm getting insane. I need to delete files to free up space in my MacBook Pro. But I can't. Because I need more space to free up space…

So far, I've tried… :

- …to (force) delete files without using trash. Didn't work.

- to use the terminal and sudo rm rf. But I c'ant even type anything because I don't have enough space!

- I even tried to use a third party app I already had but it did'nt work…

- CCleaner doesn't even work!



I am lost, and I'm really scared to shut down/restart the computer because I don't want to lose any data. I use that Mac for work. I didn't even use TimeMachine or clone that computer for a long time/



Please, help me… It's urgent
 
First thing is to do a backup. At minimum copy your most important data to another disk, another computer or to a cloud service.

Restarting the computer may give you a little respite as macOS will do some tidy-up on boot - assuming it can boot!!

Do a backup first!!

Further steps may depend on the Mac. So do tell us what MBP (model, but most importantly Intel or Apple silicon) and what version of macOS.
 
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I tried to plug an external drive but my Mac doesn't recognize it… I tried to use Disk Utility, and two third parties apps, in vain. I swear I'm about to cry :(
Is there another way to copy these datas?
 
Can you boot into Safe Boot mode? (Restart, holding the Shift key, until you get to the login window)
Safe mode, because it does not load some of your startup software, may allow you to move a few choice files to trash, then empty the trash. If that helps, and you can get some space free, restart again normally, and finish up your "cleanup". I suggest that you continue to work at it, until you have at least 10% space free on your drive
 
DeltaMac said:
Can you boot into Safe Boot mode? (Restart, holding the Shift key, until you get to the login window)
Safe mode, because it does not load some of your startup software, may allow you to move a few choice files to trash, then empty the trash. If that helps, and you can get some space free, restart again normally, and finish up your "cleanup". I suggest that you continue to work at it, until you have at least 10% space free on your drive
Click to expand...
I thought about it but was wondering if there was another option before. My fear is that if I restart in safe mode, my Mac won't boot because the disk is too full. I'm afraid of losing everything. Is it possible?
 
Well, the longer that you mess with it while it is that full, the more likely it is that you will begin to corrupt your files.
Safe boot takes up less memory footprint, and might mean that you will be able to boot, and possibly release enough space (because you have restarted), allowing you to begin to delete some files, maybe enough that you can then reboot properly, and finish the cleanup task that you need to do.
I know what I would do. I have an external SSD with a full system installed. I would boot to that external drive, then should be able to browse into the internal drive, and move off enough files/folders to get back to a safe space.
Some folders would be easy, as you can almost always safely delete any "Caches" folders. Those will sometimes allow you to return several GB of space, just in Caches folders.
An external system boot drive would be a great help at this point.
 
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Can anyone confirm if this is expected behavior for a full disk? It sounds to me like something else could be an issue.

Backup any way you can— if it won’t recognize an external disk, then push stuff to iCloud or something. Not sure what you’ll be able to do though- the system sounds pretty wedged.
 
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Another said:
Please I'm getting insane. I need to delete files to free up space in my MacBook Pro. But I can't. Because I need more space to free up space…

So far, I've tried… :

- …to (force) delete files without using trash. Didn't work.

- to use the terminal and sudo rm rf. But I c'ant even type anything because I don't have enough space!

- I even tried to use a third party app I already had but it did'nt work…

- CCleaner doesn't even work!



I am lost, and I'm really scared to shut down/restart the computer because I don't want to lose any data. I use that Mac for work. I didn't even use TimeMachine or clone that computer for a long time/



Please, help me… It's urgent
Click to expand...
I would create a RAMDisk in terminal, copy files into the RAMDisk, start deleting files, then move the files back out of the RAMDisk, RAMDisk is stored in RAM so gives you extra space temporarily but move less important files to the RAMDisk and make sure your Mac doesn't turn off before you have moved the files back into the regular storage because RAM is erased on shutdown.
 
Another said:
Please I'm getting insane. I need to delete files to free up space in my MacBook Pro. But I can't. Because I need more space to free up space…

So far, I've tried… :

- …to (force) delete files without using trash. Didn't work.

- to use the terminal and sudo rm rf. But I c'ant even type anything because I don't have enough space!

- I even tried to use a third party app I already had but it did'nt work…

- CCleaner doesn't even work!



I am lost, and I'm really scared to shut down/restart the computer because I don't want to lose any data. I use that Mac for work. I didn't even use TimeMachine or clone that computer for a long time/



Please, help me… It's urgent
Click to expand...
I would do the following:
-Shut down the system completely
-Boot via external device, e.g. bootable pendrive
-delete some files off the internal SSD

Of course you need to have such bootable USB-device around and in any way have made backups beforehand.

Always do backups!

(I‘ve had a similar situation on a Mini with 128GB SSD some years ago. Back then I thought such small SSDs should be illegal)
 
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Another said:
Please I'm getting insane. I need to delete files to free up space in my MacBook Pro. But I can't. Because I need more space to free up space…

So far, I've tried… :

- …to (force) delete files without using trash. Didn't work.

- to use the terminal and sudo rm rf. But I c'ant even type anything because I don't have enough space!

- I even tried to use a third party app I already had but it did'nt work…

- CCleaner doesn't even work!



I am lost, and I'm really scared to shut down/restart the computer because I don't want to lose any data. I use that Mac for work. I didn't even use TimeMachine or clone that computer for a long time/



Please, help me… It's urgent
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what the problem is here. Can't you just get an external hard disk and offload the contents of your Documents folder and larger files?

You say that the Mac does not recognize backup drives connected to your Mac. Do you see the standard dialog box asking to format the disk (which would generally be to APFS, in later versions of macOS), once you've connected the external drive? What actually happens when you connect it to your Mac?

Shutting down and restarting your Mac may actually be a good idea, since macOS should routinely clear out any caches that may have filled up with temporary data. Your data on the hard drive will not be destroyed by simply doing so. However, your data in volatile memory (RAM) will obviously be gone in that case, meaning the files that you're currently working on and haven't saved.

Are you having problems closing files, saving data and shutting down apps in order to restart the system because you've filled up your hard disk? Do you have apps that are still open? It's hard to tell whether you are talking about RAM or about your hard disk storage. (Many people do get the two confused.)
 
Another said:
I thought about it but was wondering if there was another option before. My fear is that if I restart in safe mode, my Mac won't boot because the disk is too full. I'm afraid of losing everything. Is it possible?
Click to expand...
It's super super rare that your OS act so abnormal just because of running out of free space (unless something like there is a memory leak, and eventually the virtual memory eat up all the hard drive's space). Can you actually see how
much space remaining?

And as long as the data is there, a reboot shouldn't cause any data lost.

Reboot to safe mode should clean up some system cache, and swap files. This may help you to recover some space (assuming you are talking about the OS drive is running out of space).
 
Delete snapshots. In Ventura you can do that via Disk Utility directly I believe, otherwise need the commandline, tmutil can do it.
 
I tried to plug an external drive but my Mac doesn't recognize it… I tried to use Disk Utility, and two third parties apps, in vain.
Click to expand...

Back up your most important stuff to iCloud (or to Google Drive), restart your machine, and see if you can delete stuff. If nothing else works, you can get one of those really big storage cloud storage plans on iCloud / Google Drive and just put your files there and then factory reset your laptop.

Really though, the fact that you can't delete files and your Mac won't recognize external drives sounds like there's something weirder going on than just having a full drive. 😅
 
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It sounds like there is some sort of OS corruption going on here.

I would boot from an external device and backup data. After that, do a clean install of the OS. If it's an Intel machine, you can use internet recovery. If it's AS, you can use an IPSW file and Apple Configurator. Unless there is a hardware issue, you'll have a clean machine afterwards.

I wouldn't bother trying to boot it anymore.
 
OP:

What year was your MacBook Pro made?
What version of the OS is running on it?

Also
Do you use time machine?
 
All of the symptoms noted: no external drives/Time Machine not showing up, rich-text textfield in terminal not working etc... are all symptoms of no ram/hard disk space. The MPB can't page out to VM, since the drive is full, and has to constantly purge its ram.
Due to the "Terminator" chip being in recent intel Macs and built into Apple Silicon, we can't assume everyone can't root off an external anymore (🤬🙄😥).
Like ppl have said, boot in safe mode and delete files. I often use DD to literally fill my drive with junk to force my Mac to purge cache files on its own. (see Clear purgeable space on my Mac.) Then I reboot (with 0KB of drive space) and do another round of DD, then toss boss DD files. Great way to delete iDisk iCloud Drive cache. My Macs always boot just fine, if slow.
 
IF the OP has time machine "active"
and
IF the OP is using a more recent version of disk utility
then
Could the OP open disk utility, go to the view menu and choose to view tm "snapshots"
and then
DELETE the snapshots...? (if they are filling up the drive)
 
Best would be to first reboot to clear the swap. That on its own might free up enough space. Otherwise delete snapshots as suggested, that should work even with nothing left free since destroying snapshots works differently behind the scenes than rm -rf.
 
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