2025 Photoshop Scratch Disk Error

[ccc3]

I have read other articles. I cannot access photohop to designate another scrtch disk or change preferences, even with the opt + cmnd for mac. I deleted 20gigs worth of .psd and .tmp files and still wont start. I cannot find steps to desingate another scratch disk, I find no steps of how to ensure space is available to ensure photoshop will work. 

[D Fosse]

20GB is still nowhere near enough to get any serious work done - but it should be enough to let the application open.

Are you just opening the application, or are you opening a file?

Keep cleaning. You need more space - not just for Photoshop, but for your whole system. Do you have any other drives you can offload files to?

[ccc3]

Hello. Thank you for helping. I was having problems with either. If I click open an old file or just start it without a file, I get the error. I have other drives to offload files to, but this is just dumb. I can delete stuff on my computer, just need to know where that should be from. Like is there a general place folks delete things from? I keep hearing designating another scratch file source, how do I do that without being able to access photoshop, etc?

[D Fosse]

I don't know what you have on your computer, but a basic standard configuration of operating system and applications (including a range of CC apps) should not take up much more than around 90 - 130 GB:

Anything above that is in principle non-essential for the system and can be moved or cleaned out. Then you should have enough free space for the scratch disk. All your applications will dump stuff in your user account, and this tends to accumulate over time, until you clean it out.

Start with Disk Cleanup in your operating system. That can sometimes be surprisingly effective. I'm not familiar with software for Mac, but there are utilities that can show you exactly what's filling up your drives and where it is.