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P: How to fix Photoshop Scratch Disks Full Error?

New Here ,
Jan 19, 2018 Jan 19, 2018

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I am running Photoshop CC on my MacBook Air with macOS Sierra. Every time I attempt to open Photoshop through any means, the following message appears: "Could not initialize Photoshop because the scratch disks are full", and Photoshop does not open. I tried clearing space from my Mac in general including several GB worth of apps and removing several cache files, but nothing seems to work. I also tried holding down the command and option keys to reveal the Scratch Disk Preferences, and it lets me select the Startup and MacIntosh HD. Again, nothing worked. Anyone know how to fix this message, and/or clear scratch disk space?Screen Shot 2018-01-19 at 8.36.51 PM.png

 

{Moderator note: Edited the thread title PS-65057}

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

New Here , Dec 02, 2017 Dec 02, 2017

This is super late, but for anyone else who runs into this issue...Similar thing happened to me. Do you make new files by pixel size or by inches? I usually go by pixels (ex: 2500x3000 or something like that), but I apparently I had accidentally switched to inches and it would only let me max the numbers to 1000. Went back to pixels and it all worked out!

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Adobe Employee , May 05, 2021 May 05, 2021

Hi all,

 

We're sorry for the scratch disk issue. Take a look at the following troubleshooting article which can help you to resolve the "Scratch disk is full" error: Troubleshoot scratch disk full errors in Photoshop

 

Please have a look and let us know if that helps.

 

Thanks,

Mohit

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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So, as I also had this "Scratch disk Full" error with PhotoShop 7 on Windows10-64bit yesterday, and ALL the given solutions are NOT working, here is mine that works:
The problem isn´t in the presence of a "drive bigger than 1TB", it is due to "drive with more than 1 TB free of space" !
So just make an i.e. \TEMP2 folder on that concerning harddrive, and fill it up with some stuff until the free space is less than ca. 950 GB.
That´s it. Works like a charm for me.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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quote

I also had this "Scratch disk Full" error with PhotoShop 7 on Windows10-64bit.

By acrobatica

===============

<shaking head> What a sloppy solution!  Just get newer software already. </shaking heading>

 

The whole point of having a computer with 1 or more TBs of free HD space is improved storage capacity & performance. Compared to current Photoshop (see below), PS7 is an ancient relic.  It's unfit for use with modern equipment. Clinging to aged-out software with half-baked workarounds makes absolutely no sense.  Not when you can do so much more with latest Photoshop + Lightroom for a paltry  $10/month.  🤔  https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

 

 

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 20, 2023 Jul 20, 2023

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I just solved the problem in a minute, so what ?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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Has your car broken down? Just strap a horse to it, problem solved 😄 😉

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Community Expert ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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Well said!  🤣

 

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

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Contributor ,
Sep 19, 2023 Sep 19, 2023

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quote

So just make an i.e. \TEMP2 folder on that concerning harddrive, and fill it up with some stuff until the free space is less than ca. 950 GB.
That´s it. Works like a charm for me.


By acrobatica


That's the solution I looked for my 16Tb (14Tb free) disk. Just one question: can I take any some stuff, or do I need to use specific some stuff? And a second question: do I need to hit the 950Gb exactly, or may it also be 940 or 960Gb?

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 19, 2023 Sep 19, 2023

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arrrrrh sorry, you´re right, it´s not that easy ! 

 

I found out now that only Justean TumBerleak-MP3´s (TB) will work as stuff for this solution.

So you will have to dupilcate with renaming some of those files until  the 950,00 GB jam is pumped up

(you can enumerate them by hand, one by one) 

Won´t work with 950,12  or 949,87 GB, so you have to hit that limit exactly.

 

Another way may be to partition the hard disk with the well-known ChainSaw-Tools from MakeAfee

so that you gain one drive under 1 TB, but I never tried this. You´ll do this on your own risk.

 

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New Here ,
Feb 22, 2024 Feb 22, 2024

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i had the same problem when my local disk space left was 5.61GB. After creating more free space now totaling to 11GB, the program was able to open

 

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Community Expert ,
Feb 22, 2024 Feb 22, 2024

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11 GB is still nothing. 11 GB can be gone in seconds. And then you quickly have bigger problems than Photoshop.

 

You need to think on a whole different level. A bare minimum for Photoshop to work efficiently is 100 GB - but my advice is 250 GB and up. Then you're reasonably safe.

 

Advanced raster image editing requires huge amounts of memory, much more than any RAM you may have installed. So temporary working data are written to disk, aka scratch disk.

 

Every history state, for every open document, potentially adds the full starting file size. Smart objects and other advanced functions have additional overhead.

 

 

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New Here ,
Apr 11, 2024 Apr 11, 2024

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The inches >  pixels helped thank you so much 🙂

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New Here ,
Apr 19, 2024 Apr 19, 2024

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This was ages ago but, I've just gone and got a Mac today. I have 450gb storage free and I then Installed photoshop and it came up with "scratch disk full" I then go onto my storage and my storage is full. Why? Why's photoshop using 450gb of storage???

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LEGEND ,
Apr 19, 2024 Apr 19, 2024

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Photoshop likely isn't using 450Gb of scratch space. Go the the Apple menu, About This Mac. Depending on OS version it may have a storage tab or you may have a More Info button that takes you to the Settings app where you can see info about storage. Disk Utility also can give you info.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-storage-settings-mchl3d437fbc/mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/get-detailed-information-about-a-disk-dskutl1005/mac

 

You can also use an app like OmniDiskSweeper, DaisyDisk, or GrandPerspective to analyze disk usage.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

https://www.insanelymac.com/blog/best-disk-space-analyzers-mac/

 

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New Here ,
Aug 03, 2024 Aug 03, 2024

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photoshop 7 is so old it fails with that message if your scratch disk is bigger than 1TB.  Nothing you can do but find a smaller disk or upgrade.

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New Here ,
Aug 30, 2024 Aug 30, 2024

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this creative cloud driven revised photoshop is starting to look really comparable to the web browser equivelent and potential successor to photoshop imo. gimp is also completly free and runs withought exspansive program disk size needs. adobe needs to remember that this program runs in a partition or fixed storage size . exspanding storage shouldnt effect its startup. cs6 is the exact same program. so maybe i should end my subscription after paying thirdy dollars monthly for the past two years on a eleven year old macbook that still prefourms excelently and has more than enough of a spec list for photo editing in a laptop. an i7 16gb and intel onboard graphics are more than enough for future proofing the creative suite photoshop version - that was better. so im done!

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New Here ,
Sep 22, 2024 Sep 22, 2024

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New Here ,
18 hours ago 18 hours ago

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Now on the 5th variant of the latest reforming of Photoshop. Happens year after year, sometimes beneficial, sometimes just annoying, but why oh why does every time it update I lose all my presets such as which disks to use as scratch disks?  Buggers my daily routine - I know it is a minor task, but I can live without Photoshop creating minor tasks to interrupt my creative flow, thankyou.

 

 

Grrrrr.....

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Community Expert ,
18 hours ago 18 hours ago

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LATEST

@patricktheart 

If you lose your preferences in minor dot updates, something's wrong, like not having full administrator privileges in your user account.

 

With a major whole-number version update, preferences do not carry over, they never have. There is an option to migrate preferences, but I don't recommend it because of the high risk of accumulated errors carrying over as well.

 

As for actions, brushes, anything that can be saved out - save out and keep it in a safe place. Then it can always be easily reloaded.

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