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troubleshooting a disk space issue with Lightroom Classic 15.6

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Hello, I need help troubleshooting a disk space issue with Lightroom Classic 15.6 on my MacBook Pro M1 (16 GB RAM).

I have around 30 GB of free space on my internal SSD when Lightroom is closed. As soon as I open Lightroom Classic, the available space drops to around 17 GB. When I try to export photographs as 16-bit TIFF files to an external HDD, the available disk space keeps decreasing until Lightroom displays an error saying there is not enough disk space.

My RAW files are approximately 30–60 MB each. My Lightroom catalogue is associated with a relatively small preview cache (around 2 GB), so this does not appear to explain the amount of space being used.

In Activity Monitor, Lightroom Classic uses approximately 11 GB of RAM, and macOS shows around 2.8 GB of swap memory. Memory pressure is green.

I need to export full-resolution 16-bit TIFF files for professional work, so reducing the bit depth is not an acceptable solution.

Could this be a known issue with Lightroom Classic 15.6 on macOS, possibly involving temporary Camera Raw files or disk caching during export?

Could you please help me identify which files are consuming the internal disk space and advise whether there is a known fix, workaround, or newer version that resolves this issue?

Thank you for your help.

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davidmaizil

Participating Frequently

The disk space you see disappearing is most likely macOS swap. Lightroom and the GPU share the same 16 GB on an M1, and when that runs out macOS writes memory to swap files on the internal SSD. That matches all three things you describe: space drops when Lightroom opens, keeps shrinking during the export, and comes back when you quit. They are swap files, not Lightroom files. Once the SSD is close to full the next allocation fails, and Lightroom reports that as "not enough memory".

Two things to try, in this order:

1. Preferences > Performance > untick "Use GPU for Export", then export that one TIFF again. On Apple silicon the GPU export path needs a lot of unified memory for a full-size 16-bit render. The CPU path is slower but lighter.

2. In the Export dialog, check Image Sizing. If “Resize to Fit" is ticked with a size in inches or cm, the Resolution value multiplies it, and an export meant to be full size can end up asking for a far bigger image. Untick it for a true full-resolution export.

Also, 30 GB free on a 16 GB Mac is thin headroom for swap. Freeing another 30-50 GB on the internal drive would make this fail less often even without changing anything in Lightroom. 16 bits/component stays as it is in all of the above.

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JohanElzenga

Community Expert

1: Good point. In case you wonder where that option is: you need to set the GPU to ‘Custom’ rather than ‘Auto’ to get there.

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-- Johan W. Elzenga

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

“Could this be a known issue with Lightroom Classic 15.6 on macOS, possibly involving temporary Camera Raw files or disk caching during export?”

I don’t know if this is a known problem, but exporting large files requires a lot of RAM and a lot of free disk space, and you have neither. Too little RAM can be solved by using disk space for swap files, but you also have very little free disk space, so it simply does not add up in the end. There are utilities that can show you what uses up your disk space. There is a free app called ‘Storage inspector’ in the Apple App Store. I’ve not used it myself, but it looks like that could be useful.

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-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Ra�l_Bartolom� Esteba2473Author

Participant

Thank you Johan

The thing that I was working with that settings and space in my mac , and everything was going well. And then Yesterday Lightrrom started to show that error, and I do not know why.

I used Grand perspective to see the space in the Mac

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dj_paige

Legend

The exact error message is:
“some export operations were not performed. There was not enough memory”

So this is a memory (RAM) problem and not a disk space problem. As I am not a Mac user, someone else will have to jump in with advice.

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Ra�l_Bartolom� Esteba2473Author

Participant

Thank you

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dj_paige

Legend

I cannot answer all of your questions, but this is not a known bug, and there is no newer version of LrC. RAM is irrelevant here.

Please tell us the exact complete unedited word-for-word error message when you try to export a TIFF to an external HD.

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Ra�l_Bartolom� Esteba2473Author

Participant

The exact error message is:

“some export operations were not performed. There was not enough memory”

This happens when I try to export just one photo as a 16-bit TIFF to an external hard drive.

For context, I have around 30 GB of free space on my Mac’s internal drive before opening Lightroom Classic. Once I open Lightroom, this drops to around 17 GB. When I attempt the export, the available space continues to decrease until the export fails. After I close Lightroom, the free space returns to around 30 GB.

The RAW files are approximately 30–60 MB each, and I have confirmed that the export destination is the external hard drive.

I understand that RAM may not be relevant, but I wanted to mention the drop in available internal disk space because it seems directly related to the problem.

Could you advise what might be causing this behaviour and whether there is a way to identify which temporary files or processes are consuming the internal disk space during export?

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