start up disk full

[wizzerandchips]

being a noob, I have a macbook that keeps telling me my start up disk is nearly full and i need to delete some items, how do i do this and where do i look or is it as simple as deleting some movies and other word and works documents or can I move them around to create more space.

 

[WildCowboy]

Do you use all the software on your MacBook? iDVD and GarageBand (well, their support files) take up several GB per app. Printer drivers and foreign language support files also take up a fair bit of space. But if you're already filling your drive and you think you need just about all the stuff you have on there, it's time to think about getting an external drive or picking up a new drive to install in your MacBook.

 

[solvs]

Yeah, take out all the extra language files and printer drivers. That'll help. Same with iLife apps you don't use, as said above. There's freeware out there that will do this. Search Versiontracker and/or Macupdate. I use Onyx too to clear out all the temp files. If that still doesn't work, move some of you files to another computer, CDs, DVDs, or another drive.

 

[topgun072003]

There's a third party app called whatsize... This will measure everything in your hd. Then you can see what's taking up the most space and delete it...If you don't want to, then its time for an external.

 

[frenchy]

Yes, if you use Delocalizer + Onyx + OmniDiskSweeper, you should be able to retrieve a few Gbytes (I myself retrieved a bit more than 5 Gbytes ).

OmniDiskSweeper will show you where the memory is being spoiled. Especially as said in a reply above, you can get rid of most of the printer drivers, of GarageBand samples/tutorials. When I cleaned up my PBG4, I also found (thanks to OmniDiskSweeper) that the GoogleEarth cache was using approx. 1 Gbyte

 

[MacBook'06]

I have a general rule: Always leave at lest 10% of your hard drive space free (the HDD with the OS on in). This is for Virtual Memory etc.
There is a cool app i use called Disk Inventory X:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/diskinventoryx.html

It lays out all your files in a graphical way, to scale so you can see what big files are on there.
But it all comes down to: Get an external HDD!

 

[wizzerandchips]

cheers guys, have a lacie external drive, ill lump some files over to there and delete from my macbook.