P: How to fix Photoshop Scratch Disks Full Error?

[samarthsrivastav]

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?

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

[valentinevar]

This is disk management

[sincere_RippleB833]

I'm using Photoshop 2019. I have a 5TB LaCie that Photoshop does not see that I would like to set up as my third scratch disk and I'm ready to scream!

[Russ_Peters]

I'm using an older version, but mine wouldn't see any disk over 1TB. I had
to make a smaller virtual volume on the disk I wanted and then PS could see
it.

Russ

[D Fosse]

This could be a permissions issue in your user account. This should normally run smoothly after "run as administrator" once.

Can you right-click on the disk and go into properties and tick "take ownership" or "all permissions" or something like that?

Or maybe just try to reset Photoshop Preferences in case it just lost its bearings.

[KawaInk]

You saved my life

[krystal_paperstreetmedia]

Had the same problem, but running it as an admin - just once - allowed me to select the HDD that wasnt showing up. Now whenever i run PS the drive is still missing from the list but i guess it is still selected as the main scratch disk. Thanks for the tip D_Fosse.

Update: nope, i always have to start as admin to be able to select that drive.

[Wintermute 001]

I googled "set app to open as administrator by default," and this answer solved my problem:

How to Always Run Apps as Administrator

1. Open the Start menu.
2. In the All Apps list, scroll down and find the app you want to change (Photoshop).
3. Right-click on the app's name and go to More > Open file location.
4. File Explorer will open. ...
5. Click on Properties and select the Shortcut tab.
6. Select Advanced.
7. Finally, mark the checkbox next to Run as administrator.

Now Photoshop runs as administrator by default, and sees all of my drives.

Hope this helps you, too!

[Edward5FBE]

But running the photoshop as an admin prevents me from dragging a picture to photoshop.

[Knightron]

This worked for me, running Photoshop as an administrator gave me the choice to select drives.

[abi27184941e5v7]

This fixed my issue. Resseting photoshop preferences and restarting PS. When i check scratch disks my hdd is now show with all available space

[saffronindia]

Photoshop keeps telling me that my scratch disk is full, I have checked it and I have 56.66gb free on my mac so I am slightly confused as to how much space is actually needed for photoshop to fully function. Can anyone help???

[c.pfaffenbichler]

What are your Performance and Scratch Disk Preferences settings?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

[MBorowiec]

Do You have more than one partition?

Check in scratch disk settings, where You have setted scratch disk, and add maybe second partition (which have that 56,6GB) and then try again.

[Test Screen Name]

And check AT THE TIME OF THE ERROR MESSAGE and before clicking OK whether the free space is actually used. 50GB is not so much.

[JJMack]

Yes you need to check the free space while the message is being displayed.  I have seen Photoshop use over 120GB of scratch space on my machine.  It depends one what you do how much space Photoshop will use. When you close Photoshop down Photoshop will return all scratch space it used back to free space.

[mamtay3068224]

Hi,

what should we do in such case?

[macpawel]

If you work with really large file - it's common to use your disk as additional magazine instead of RAM.

If you see message about Scratch Disk - no way - you will lost your work. It means your machine have not enougth memory to run and savbe your artwork. Sorry - it's true.

But,

If you see this message try to go to Edit menu and choose Purge optin. Purge All can help you to save your work (maybe)

Simply

You have very large image, many layers (Smart objects) and full memory usage

Pawel

[jbm007]

Scratch disk is a fixed size on your hard drive. So while you may indicate you have 56 GB free space on your hard drive, there is no correlation to what PS is actually using.

Like others have indicated you are going to have to increase your scratch disc size to compensate for the larger files you are working with.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

The original poster does not seem to have a lot more to say on the issue so far.

[Test Screen Name]

In such a case look at details. How much space is available? Does it really fill up? Unless you have a file accidentally too large, add disk space or free some. It's your computer, be in charge of it.

[kayleer7949070 · Accepted solution]

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!

[josefinn87219144]

Thank you!! I had done the same thing (cm instead of pixels) and could not figure out why a blank 1920x1080 file would be using 50GB... Silly mistake but did not think to check!

[motivated_student5DC2]

Saved me, too. Thank you! 

[MML24461837yed0]

Thank you! This saved me!

[Daniel34310176hm3c]

Heyy, been on this issue for days now and this just helped me fix it. Thank you so much 🫶