My Mac has lost its mind [emoji43]‍[emoji94]

[fridayxiii]

Aside from slow startup, my iMac has been running fine, until today.

Midday, Mail crashed on me, giving the error “could not save changes because Home folder is full”. I had 25GB of 1TB free, but I delete some files anyway. I follow the steps to move the ~/Library/Mail folder, still no go.

I thought I’d use Spark mail instead but the app won’t launch. I try to remove & reinstall but the DMG won’t download, says I have insufficient disk space.

Other MR member suggest I create a new user to see if the issues persist, but a new user account won’t save. I added a new Admin account twice, no errors, but I still don’t see the new account.

I’m at a total loss. I backed everything up via Time Machine and frankly, I wanna nuke the thing and start over.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

 

[davidlv]

Aside from slow startup, my iMac has been running fine, until today.

Midday, Mail crashed on me, giving the error “could not save changes because Home folder is full”. I had 25GB of 1TB free, but I delete some files anyway. I follow the steps to move the ~/Library/Mail folder, still no go.

I thought I’d use Spark mail instead but the app won’t launch. I try to remove & reinstall but the DMG won’t download, says I have insufficient disk space.

Other MR member suggest I create a new user to see if the issues persist, but a new user account won’t save. I added a new Admin account twice, no errors, but I still don’t see the new account.

I’m at a total loss. I backed everything up via Time Machine and frankly, I wanna nuke the thing and start over.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

First, post more details, computer model , iMac 15,1 for example, the current OS version, i.e., Ventura 15.3.1 etc.
Then see if you can create a USB OS install disk. (need the OS installer file in your Applications folder, and a 16GB USB named Untitled, formatted as HFs+ & Guid. For Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura use one of the following commands in Terminal;

For macOS Big Sur
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --nointeraction

For macOS Monterey
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

For macOS Ventura
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Ventura.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled

macOS Ventura Full Installer Database. Download Directly from Apple!

Download macOS Ventura full installer with one click straight from Apple! Every version of Ventura Beta & Final available all in one place!!

mrmacintosh.com

After that post again, you will probably have to boot from the USB, wipe the internal drive, install the new OS, then use Migration Assistant to restore your data.
I suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner (free test period one month, https://bombich.com/) to make another backup first, if possible. Time machine can be problematic in certain cases.

 

[herbert7265]

Without having more details I just dare to state that your HD / SSD on your computer is full and that causes your problems. 25 GB of 1 TB is just 2.5% of remaining capacity, that´s simply nothing. A standard recommendation is to have around 20% capacity left!

Herbert

 

[fridayxiii]

Here are the details of my iMac....

 

[fridayxiii]

One interesting thing is that disk info for my HD shows 25GB available, but I see 150ish (too tired to do the math) in Storage Mgmt.

 

[fridayxiii]

Update: info on my HD (from Finder) shows 184 GB free but I still cannot download anything. I tried to download the installer for Cloner but I just get a 0 mb file.

 

[floral]

View attachment 2268515

You have 1 TB of storage meant for use on your device, and that's exactly how much you've used: 1 TB. Even a little more than that.

I'm assuming the 30 extra GB it lends you is "emergency space", for dire situations like RAM swap or if the system needs to do something that costs storage.

That means, you probably need to either declutter the HD, or add an external storage medium like an SSD. With how much storage you use, I'd recommend a +500GB SSD to make sure this doesn't happen again.

 

[Ben J.]

There are lots of things happening behind the scenes with macOS, Timemachine, snapshots, iCloud syncing etc. It should be able to manage stuff itself, but it might sometimes be slow to update - deleting old Timemachine backups f.ex.

First thing to try, if you haven't already, is to restart, and let it sit for a while. The MDS process should be able to manage data to not fill the drive to the rim, and also update what 'about this mac' and Finder/Diskutil shows as used/free space.

If this doesn't help with the immediate situation, there are fixes.

 

[oldappledoc]

Exactly this issue happened on my M1 mini. Deleting all the internal snapshots from internal drive via drive utility solved the problem.

 

[chown33]

Here's the section of the Disk Utility user guide describing snapshot management:

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, view a list of APFS snapshots, copy information about the snapshots, and delete them.

support.apple.com

 

[Kr0n05K!ngR]

hmm, have you tried clearing out your cache? On linux i use bit bleach that will find any temp files, but in the macOS case, you should be able to do it yourself. Try; go > go to folder >~/Library > right click "caches" and check what the size is.

You can do something similar from storage, as it should provide you a brake down of what is being used by scrolling down. You can then (i) and see an even more detailed brake down.

Considering the age of your Mac, another reason that your SSD could be showing space you cannot use, is may be due to the SSD in the mac being on its way out, as the SSD will restructure the space if i remember right, so to avoid data loss, meaning you lose access to the total capacity.

It could be something simple as the partition table, have you tried first aid within Disk Utility?

 

[TBoneMac]

Aside from slow startup, my iMac has been running fine, until today.

Midday, Mail crashed on me, giving the error “could not save changes because Home folder is full”. I had 25GB of 1TB free, but I delete some files anyway. I follow the steps to move the ~/Library/Mail folder, still no go.

I thought I’d use Spark mail instead but the app won’t launch. I try to remove & reinstall but the DMG won’t download, says I have insufficient disk space.

Other MR member suggest I create a new user to see if the issues persist, but a new user account won’t save. I added a new Admin account twice, no errors, but I still don’t see the new account.

I’m at a total loss. I backed everything up via Time Machine and frankly, I wanna nuke the thing and start over.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

Looks like your emoji doesn’t work either

 

[fridayxiii]

Update: after my failed efforts I took my iMac to a local shop I trust. Turns out the HD was failing. (It was a platter, not SSD as I’d thought.). By Monday I’ll have a new 2TB SSD HD and will make better use of my external drives for data.

I honestly had no idea my HD was that full. I’m used to getting alerts for full storage, like some of the servers in manage for work. I’ll be more proactive going forward. Even though that won’t help an aging/failing drive, it’s just good practice.

Appreciate all the replies, MR fam.