Photoshop Scratch Disk Setup Disabled

Question

I keep on getting the frustrating error message "scratch disks are full" sometimes at startup, and other times in the middle of a project.
I have followed all the advice I possibly can (Photoshop cannot launch because the scratch disk is full, hold down the Cmd + Opt keys (Mac) oon launch to set a new scratch disk.)

When holding down Cmd+Option key, I do get the dialog box, but I cannot add or change anything. It is simply another irriating dialog box with ZERO FUNCTIONALITY.

Trying the Shift+Cmd+Option keys to reset preferences did not help either.

Can anyone please assist me in this matter?

D Fosse · Accepted Answer

Check how the disk is formatted. MacOS will not accept exFAT since Catalina. Use APFS or HFS+.

D Fosse · Answer

Pixel-based image editing requires large amounts of memory, much more than any RAM you may have installed. So Photoshop writes temporary working data to disk. This is the scratch disk. Without sufficient disk space, Photoshop cannot function.

When you get that message, it means you are critically low on disk space. You need to take that message seriously, or you will soon have bigger problems than Photoshop. If you don't have another disk available that you can assign, you need to free up space on your system drive ASAP (which, BTW, you should do in any case).

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