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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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New Here ,
Apr 19, 2022 Apr 19, 2022

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If you're getting an error message that the scratch disk is full, it usually means you need to clear some space on whatever drive is defined as the scratch disk in Photoshop Preferences, or add additional drives for Photoshop to use as scratch space.

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New Here ,
Apr 18, 2017 Apr 18, 2017

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Hello

I am having trouble with the Scratch disk on my Mac. I can't render my work on photoshop as there is no space left on my scratch disk. Any recommendations on how i can fix this?

Thank you

Tom

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Apr 18, 2017 Apr 18, 2017

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Hi Tom,

If you have a different partition on your Primary drive with some space left or have a different drive connected to your computer, You could change the scratch disk to a different drive from "Scratch disk preferences". Take a look at the solution in this discussion Scratch disk full and cannot open photoshop to fix it...  and let us know if that helps.

Thanks,

Akash

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Adobe Employee ,
May 02, 2017 May 02, 2017

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Make sure that you updated to Photoshop 2017.1.1. (released today).

This update includes a fix for a scratch space issue.

Jesper

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Community Expert ,
May 02, 2017 May 02, 2017

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It is good that bug has been fixed it would be even better if other reported bugs were also fixed.   So users like me can get off of CC 2014.  Adobe feedback site states that work is in progress for I bug I reported.  Its been in Progress in CC 2015.5  in CC 2017 and is still in progress I guess in CC 2017.1.1 progress seems to be stalled IMO.  I have reported other bugs that have been in Photoshop forever and will most likely remain in Photoshop till its life-cycle end.  IMO Bugs will eventually kill Photoshop but without competition that will not be within my life time. Its Photoshop till the end of me....

JJMack

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New Here ,
May 24, 2022 May 24, 2022

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basically this is the perfect con to drive people onto adobe cloud... photoshop cs4 was faster in everyway... youre going backwards adobe, expect users to jump ship as soon as they can!

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Community Expert ,
Jul 10, 2022 Jul 10, 2022

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quote

basically this is the perfect con to drive people onto adobe cloud... photoshop cs4 was faster in everyway... youre going backwards adobe, expect users to jump ship as soon as they can!


By @Chris24581605id4g

Photoshop 4 (not CS4) was even faster… but the possibilities and features were as well less.

 

FYI: I even did word processing and database programming on machines having ram of 64kb (not Mb or Gb as I have now). I had one screen, only simple monochrome graphics, and a slow disk drive (not a hard disk!). They call it technological advances. My phone today has more resources as the mainframe I had access too at that time. Progress can't be stopped.

 

My first Photoshop was Photoshop 3 or 4, I do not even remember well.

 

BTW: My current computer, with a powerful CPU (not the most powerful CPU available), and a medium graphics card (as prices were off at the time I did build this system) is blazing fast (but I guess Photoshop CS4 would be faster, if I could still install and run it on this machine).

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 12, 2022 Jul 12, 2022

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Thats the main reason I still use Photoshop 7. It has all the features I
need and runs very well in Windows 11 aside of having to make a virtual
drive for the scratch disk under 1tb every time I want to open it.

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Virus-free.
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<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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New Here ,
Jun 09, 2022 Jun 09, 2022

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I am Unable To Use Adobe on my windows 10 can Any one can help me with that I am logo designer  but their is an error kindly please help me

 

[moderator removed an unrelated link. You can get banned by posting links here that are not related to your question or a solution]

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Community Expert ,
Jul 10, 2022 Jul 10, 2022

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If you elaborated your error message, someone may be able to help.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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New Here ,
Nov 02, 2022 Nov 02, 2022

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I solved the problem I had: I found out that my Dropbox membership wasn't renewed and everything got copyed into my HDD filling it up and having no more room for anything else. I renewed it and everything got copied back online saving space in my HDD.

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New Here ,
Nov 20, 2022 Nov 20, 2022

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Good Morning, I am starting a new photoshop project & but message comes up saying scratch discs are full?

kind regards

 

Siobhān Ferguson

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Community Expert ,
Nov 20, 2022 Nov 20, 2022

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Please show a screenshot of Edit > Preferences > Scratch disks:

scratch_disk.png

 

Generally, raster image editing moves massive amounts of data around, much more than any RAM you may have installed. This temporary working data has to go somewhere, so it's written to disk. That's the scratch disk.

 

For casual work with small files, you can get away with 30 - 50 GB. For serious work, you should have 500 GB - 1 TB.

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New Here ,
Dec 28, 2022 Dec 28, 2022

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I am having this problem too.  When I press option/command to try to move scratch disk to alternative hard drive this comes up and doesn't give me any option to change disk.  Any ideas?  I can't get into PS at all.  I have cleared up a lot of my hard drive but still won't let me in.  Help!   Typically in the middle of some work. so need it to work!Screenshot 2022-12-28 at 13.49.51.png

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LEGEND ,
Dec 28, 2022 Dec 28, 2022

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First of all, with only 3.5GB free on your startup drive, your computer could crash. Make sure you have given Photoshop permission to access external drives and definitely clear up space before things go very, very wrong.

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Contributor ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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For some reason Photoshop doesn't even see my two external LaCie drives. So nothing works to help this.

 

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Community Expert ,
Jul 12, 2023 Jul 12, 2023

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For some reason Photoshop doesn't even see my two external LaCie drives. So nothing works to help this.

By @KokoBlue

=========

Your externals probably aren't formatted correctly.

macOS: APFS or macOS Extended (Journaled)

Windows: NTFS, exFAT, FAT32

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html

 

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator
Alt-Web Design & Publishing ~ Web : Print : Graphics : Media

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New Here ,
Jun 20, 2023 Jun 20, 2023

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If you're encountering the "Scratch Disks Full" error in Adobe Photoshop, it means that the designated hard drive or partition used for virtual memory (scratch disk) is running out of space. To resolve this issue, you can try the following solutions:

  1. Clear Temporary Files: Go to the "Edit" menu in Photoshop, select "Purge," and then choose the appropriate option to clear temporary files, such as "All" or "Clipboard." This can free up some space on your scratch disk.

  2. Increase Scratch Disk Space: Photoshop allows you to specify multiple scratch disks. You can add another hard drive or partition with sufficient space to alleviate the problem. To do this, go to the "Edit" menu, select "Preferences," then choose "Scratch Disks." Check the available drives and mark the additional ones you want to use.

  3. Clean Up the Scratch Disk: If your designated scratch disk is nearly full, consider deleting unnecessary files or transferring them to another location. This will create more space for Photoshop to use. Additionally, you can use disk cleanup tools or manually delete temporary files from the scratch disk.

  4. Change Scratch Disk Location: If your primary scratch disk is low on space, you can change its location to another drive or partition with more available storage. In the "Preferences" menu, select "Scratch Disks" and uncheck the current disk while marking the desired disk.

  5. Increase Available Disk Space: If none of the above solutions work, consider freeing up disk space on your system drive or partition by deleting unnecessary files, uninstalling unused programs, or transferring data to an external storage device.

  6. Upgrade Your Hard Drive: If you consistently encounter scratch disk full errors despite optimizing your storage, it may be time to upgrade to a larger-capacity hard drive or consider using an SSD (Solid State Drive) for faster performance.

Remember to restart Photoshop after making any changes to apply the new settings. If the issue persists or you are unsure about modifying these settings, it is recommended to seek assistance from Adobe Support or consult with a technical expert.

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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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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
Alt-Web Design & Publishing ~ Web : Print : Graphics : Media

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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
Alt-Web Design & Publishing ~ Web : Print : Graphics : Media

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Contributor ,
Sep 19, 2023 Sep 19, 2023

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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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