Wait wait, DO tell me if my hard disk is getting full!

[motulist]

How do I get the OS to start warning me again that disk space is getting full after I checked off "Don't warn me again" ?

Details:
I was low on disk space and the OS kept warning my I was low. I was sick of seeing that message over and over because I was well aware that it was almost full for a long time, so I checked of "Don't warn me again." But I didn't know that meant for all time, I thought it just meant till the problem was alleviated. So now that I've cleaned out space and used it up again it still isn't warning me when hard disk space is getting full again. How do I get it to start warning me again?

 

[AlBDamned]

Which OS are you using, motulist?

 

[motulist]

10.3.4

 

[AlBDamned]

10.3.4

Hmmm - I thought you might be using something older as I've never seen this alert come up in 10.3 & 4.

I figured it might be somewhere in utilities but no luck and no joy in Sys. Prefs either.

 

[motulist]

It seemed to pop up when there was less than about 250 MB of free space left on your startup disk.

 

[calebjohnston]

Whoa there. You really need GB's free of space. 8 GB free is recommended for OS X.

 

[motulist]

Yeah, I know that. Do you have some money and time to shop that you'd like to donate?

 

[XNine]

Whoa there. You really need GB's free of space. 8 GB free is recommended for OS X.

Yeah, enough to cache a DVD. How can you POSSIBLY chew that much space up on an HD? And why aren't you backing files up to disc? Not that you can now with 250 MB of space, since there's no room to cache the space for a DVD.

 

[motulist]

DVD? Try CD my friend. I'm on a 1 ghz powerbook from many years ago and the dvd burner was not standard. I burn cd's all the time, but I generate and download a lot of data, so no matter how much space I free up I eat it back up really quickly. And that's why I need the OS's "disk almost full" warning again since I'm always going back and forth with my free disk space.

 

[calebjohnston]

Maybe you should invest in a cheap external harddrive. Even something that's just a few GB's would work.

 

[motulist]

And it only has a "60 gig" drive in it which becomes less than 56 gigs after formating. Then minus a few gigs for the OS and then minus a few gigs for the applications, etc. and you wind up with not that much space for data. Yeah, I know I need a new hard drive guys. I appreciate the advice, but it doesn't help me at the moment. Right now I need to know how to get that warning back.

 

[AlBDamned]

Still no idea where the checkbox is, but might it also be worth doing some tidying up on your hard drive?

Use Monlingual to get rid of excess languages; and

Omnidisksweeper to highlight big files so you can determine any junk you've got.

Should free up a few gigs in the meantime...

 

[motulist]

Still no idea where the checkbox is, but might it also be worth doing some tidying up on your hard drive?

Use Monlingual to get rid of excess languages; and

Omnidisksweeper to highlight big files so you can determine any junk you've got.

Should free up a few gigs in the meantime...

Both really good ideas, I already did monolingual a while ago. I'll try disk sweeper again, but with the audio and video files that I work with I have lots of big files all over the place that I want to keep, so it doesn't really help me too much.

 

[AlBDamned]

Both really good ideas, I already did monolingual a while ago. I'll try disk sweeper again, but with the audio and video files that I work with I have lots of big files all over the place that I want to keep, so it doesn't really help me too much.

Monolingual is worth doing after every x.x update, as the languages get put back on.

I'm bemused by this. There doesn't seem to be an answer anywhere.

 

[motulist]

I'm bemused by this. There doesn't seem to be an answer anywhere.

I know, me too. It's a very un-Mac sort of thing. I usually never give a second thought to changing these sorts of in-popup-window options because I always assume that there's an easy way to change the setting later through some other means, but it seems like on this occasion the Mac OS programmers may have goofed. It reminds me of using MS Windows where you have to think hard about every choice you make because you cant rely on the fact that you'll be able to get back to an option to change it later. It's not like my Mac will explode if I can't change this option again, but it is a bit unsettling.

 

[AlBDamned]

I know, me too. It's a very un-Mac sort of thing. I usually never give a second thought to changing these sorts of in-popup-window options because I always assume that there's an easy way to change the setting later through some other means, but it seems like on this occasion the Mac OS programmers may have goofed. It reminds me of using MS Windows where you have to think hard about every choice you make because you cant rely on the fact that you'll be able to get back to an option to change it later. It's not like my Mac will explode if I can't change that option again, but it is a little unsettling.

The thing is, if you check similar warnings on iTunes, to delete a track for example, the only time you get asked again is if you start afresh with the program. There might not be an option to switch those warnings on again.

Also, if youre on 3.4, is there any reason why you've not updated the OS before (not that you've got the space currently to do that, but.. )?

 

[motulist]

is there any reason why you've not updated the OS?

There are a few reasons:

1) My computer works fine and I'd rather stick with a setup that I know is stable rather than stay on the constant upgrade merry go round.

2) I see no compelling reason to upgrade other then the built in dictionary, and that's not enough. Spotlight is cool, but I use the built in "find" feature all the time and it always does exactly what I want, and I ask it to do a lot. Widgets? C'mon, they're a fun little toy, but I don't see them being any more useful then just using the web or the regular applications. I always have ical open and I have the calculator in my dock and if I want the weather I go to safari, which is always open, and just select my weather site bookmark. Etc, etc. I don't see anything in 10.4 that entices me.

3) There are actually features I like that I would LOSE by upgrading. For instance in the system prefs in 10.3 you can put your most used prefs into a space uptop so you can always get to them in one easy click. In 10.4 they took that away, so your only choices are to hunt through the whole library of prefs every single time just to get to the ones you use all the time or you have to use the spotlight field and take your hands off the track pad and put them on the keyboard and start typing for each and every pref you use all the time. Bleh. Being on a laptop I change certain system prefs all the time and that would be a royal pain in the butt.

I could go on, but that's enough.

 

[AlBDamned]

There are a few reasons:

1) My computer works fine and I'd rather stick with a setup that I know is stable rather than stay on the constant upgrade merry go round.

2) I see no compelling reason to upgrade other then the built in dictionary, and that's not enough. Spotlight is cool, but I use the built in "find" feature all the time and it always does exactly what I want, and I ask it to do a lot. Widgets? C'mon, they're a fun little toy, but I don't see them being any more useful then just using the web or the regular applications. I always have ical open and I have the calculator in my dock and if I want the weather I og to safari which is always open and just select my weather site bookmark. Etc, etc. I don't see anything in 10.4 that entices me.

3) There are actually features I like that I would LOSE by upgrading. For instance in the system prefs in 10.3 you can put your most used prefs into a space uptop so you can always get to them in one easy click. In 10.4 they took that away because, so your only choices are to hunt through the whole library of prefs each and every time looking for the ones you use all the time or you have to use the spotlight field and take your hands off the track pad and put them on the keyboard and start typing for each and every pref you use all the time. Bleh. Being on a laptop I change certain system prefs all the time and that would be a royal pain in the butt.

I could go on, but that's enough.

Ah ok. I actually meant the rest of 10.3 (all the way up to .9). I figure a minor system update could possibly bring back the warnings but I'm not sure.

FWIW, I loved Panther but couldn't go back to it now. Widgets I don't use so much and I can't really relate to the issues you mention above. I've never really had any issues with it so I like it.

Anyway - back to the search for the answer to the original question..!

 

[ravenvii]

There are a few reasons:

1) My computer works fine and I'd rather stick with a setup that I know is stable rather than stay on the constant upgrade merry go round.

2) I see no compelling reason to upgrade other then the built in dictionary, and that's not enough. Spotlight is cool, but I use the built in "find" feature all the time and it always does exactly what I want, and I ask it to do a lot. Widgets? C'mon, they're a fun little toy, but I don't see them being any more useful then just using the web or the regular applications. I always have ical open and I have the calculator in my dock and if I want the weather I go to safari, which is always open, and just select my weather site bookmark. Etc, etc. I don't see anything in 10.4 that entices me.

3) There are actually features I like that I would LOSE by upgrading. For instance in the system prefs in 10.3 you can put your most used prefs into a space uptop so you can always get to them in one easy click. In 10.4 they took that away, so your only choices are to hunt through the whole library of prefs every single time just to get to the ones you use all the time or you have to use the spotlight field and take your hands off the track pad and put them on the keyboard and start typing for each and every pref you use all the time. Bleh. Being on a laptop I change certain system prefs all the time and that would be a royal pain in the butt.

I could go on, but that's enough.

I think he meant update your OS to 10.3.9.

I'm on the opposite spectrum from you. I have a 80 GB drive, and I currently have 69 GB available. I couldn't imagine filling the drive up, unless I'm working on a video project, and that's only temporary, as I transfer the completed project over to an external when I'm done with it.

Oh, and that's on my Mac mini, NOT on the PowerBook 1400cs in the signature! That one has only 1 GB, and I'm not feeling cramped... yet!

 

[motulist]

D'OH! Yeah, I'm on 10.3.9 already, that's a typo where I said i was on 10.3.4

 

[AlBDamned]

D'OH! Yeah, I'm on 10.3.9 already, that's a typo where I said i was on 10.3.4

Thought that might be the case.

Have you tried hunting for it in your actual preference lists (.plists). It could be there but not having had the warning I don't have a clue what it would be called. Harddiskerror .plist, or something along those lines maybe.

Edit: I'm out of ideas after this. If you can't get it to work just make keep an eye on it manually. Also, if you actually click on your Hard disk icon, go to view>show view options>show item info, that will keep you informed of how much you've got. it's not a warning and you can obviously do this by using finder, but this is an everpresent option.

 

[quigleybc]

ya,

what he said above...

Just keep tabs on it manually....

you don't need the OS to tell you that you're running out of space....i imagine you know that already, and I'm sure you also know about how to see how much you have left...

I guess there is no option to get that pop up to come back....so....keep an eye on it...

At what point will the OS just stop indexing files i wonder? How low are you?....

I've gotten mine down to around 2 gigs remaning before...but that was as low as I let it get...

I imagine a DVD burner, would be cheaper than a new External HD....

 

[motulist]

For the record, I've run out of disk space completely many times and I have to say OS X handles it really gracefully. It says your disk is full and then if it runs out of ram too it pops up a dialog that says you need to force quit something to free up more memory, but really all you need to do is switch to a program and quit it normally. Nothing stops working at all. It still updates folder sizes and everything. I suspect that the OS keeps a bit of disk space reserved when things start to get low to make sure that everything keeps working normally even when you are at zero available disk space.

 

[motulist]

It came back all by itself! I changed nothing, and now that my disk is almost full it warned me again, no more accidental disk full errors! Yay!

Maybe it has a threshold for how much space I needed to free up again before it considered a new "almost full" to be a different instance of "almost full" than the one I told it not to warn me about. If that is the case then it makes a lot more sense that there is no option to reset anywhere about this warning. Though it ain't the most logical way for the OS to work since it didn't tell me what the criteria was for it to start warning me again, at least it makes it lot less of a Windows atrocity than it initially seemed. To make it more Mac-like it should've either had a place where I could reset the warning option manually or at least have a more descriptive message, such as instead of saying "Don't warn me again" it should say "Don't warn me again until 3 more gigabytes of disk space have been freed." Well whatever happened, it's working again, and that's a good thing.