Home directory full??

[annk]

Forgive me if this is answered elsewhere, my search turned up 56 threads, none of whose titles seemed relevant...

I've suddenly got a message in Mail - Mail can't update mailboxes because my home directory is full. I'm supposed to delete or move stuff to make room. But when I click on my home icon, the info at the bottom of the Finder window shows I've got over 40 GB of available space! What gives?

In addition, it seems that most everything on the computer sorts under Home, so where on earth could I move things TO? I'm not sure I want to delete much, and anyway, it would take a couple hours to go through it all carefully to pick out the things I can do without/delete.

 

[varmit]

Forgive me if this is answered elsewhere, my search turned up 56 threads, none of whose titles seemed relevant...

I've suddenly got a message in Mail - Mail can't update mailboxes because my home directory is full. I'm supposed to delete or move stuff to make room. But when I click on my home icon, the info at the bottom of the Finder window shows I've got over 40 GB of available space! What gives?

In addition, it seems that most everything on the computer sorts under Home, so where on earth could I move things TO? I'm not sure I want to delete much, and anyway, it would take a couple hours to go through it all carefully to pick out the things I can do without/delete.

Right click on your drive that is on your desktop, and Choose Get Info from the drop down menu. What does it say for free space? Are you downloading anything, or using file fault at all?

 

[mad jew]

Sure it's not an IMAP address that's telling you the server is full? From memory, OSX makes the distinction pretty clear so it's probably not the problem, but maybe...

 

[annk]

Thanks for the feedback.

When I right-click on the HD icon, it says 48.14 GB is free. File Vault is off, and no, I´m not downloading anything.

I´m not using imap for the mail accounts that come into Mail, so that can´t be the problem, either.

Any other ideas?

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Try repairing permissions. I had huge problems when I first got my iBook ... haven't even spent 20 minutes on it and Activity monitor wouldn't run. I repaired permissions; all is well.

I would advise you do it!

Hope that helps!

Let us know.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Maybe a problem with the FileSystem?

Try booting in Single user mode, and checking the disk:

(Re)boot while pressing and holding < COMMAND > < S >, and wait till the screen turns black with all white letters.
Then type "fsck -fy" (without the quotation marks) at the command prompt, followed by < ENTER >.

Now a "disk util" wil start, checking the boot-volume. If it is finished, type "reboot" followed by < ENTER >.
If there was a message saying "FILESYSTEM WAS MODIFIED", repeat the whole action.

Good luck.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Forgive me if this is answered elsewhere, my search turned up 56 threads, none of whose titles seemed relevant...

I've suddenly got a message in Mail - Mail can't update mailboxes because my home directory is full. I'm supposed to delete or move stuff to make room. But when I click on my home icon, the info at the bottom of the Finder window shows I've got over 40 GB of available space! What gives?

In addition, it seems that most everything on the computer sorts under Home, so where on earth could I move things TO? I'm not sure I want to delete much, and anyway, it would take a couple hours to go through it all carefully to pick out the things I can do without/delete.

Just one more thing... (love saying that )

Your home folder is actually ON you local hard drive? (I suspect so, as you own a portable Mac...)
It is possible that your home folder is network mounted (i.e. is on a Server), and it has reached its quota. You system administrator can give you access to a FileServer where your networked home folder is located, enabling a disk quota per user. This can result an a much smaller home folder size than local disk size, and cause your problem.

 

[annk]

Sorry it took me a day to reply, for some reason I didn´t get e-mail notification of the new posts.

My home directory is on my HD, no system to deal with here.

I had already repaired permissions (and run all tasks in MacJanitor), to no avail.

But when I ran fsck -fy, I saw that some "minor repair" was needed and was done successfully. The problem seems to be fixed now, thanks!