Your Startup Disk Is Almost Full OSX - How to Fix

A full startup disk is something pretty common, especially if you have a MacBook Airs or Pro with a fast, but small SSDs. In this how-to article we’ll go through several options available to fix a startup disk full problem

Empty the Trash

Ctrl + Click your trash
Select and click empty trash

Delete Large Files

Press command + n
Click on your gear icon, scroll down, click show search criteria
Choose kind is movies
Select “file size”, and filter the amount you want to delete
Highlight the files you want removed, press command + delete

Clean Up Downloads

Open Finder
Click on Downloads folder
Click on the gear icon
Scroll down to ‘Arrange By’
Select Size
Remove Largest files you don’t need

Delete Stored Cache

Click on the Magnify glass in the top right corner
Search ‘terminal’ in the search bar
Once the widget launches you will see text that could be your name, highlight this text and copy it.
Open finder
Paste the text in the search bar. (Make sure you’re searching through ‘This Mac’ and not ‘all my files’)
Click on the house icon
Click on the Library folder
Find the “Caches” folder
Go to your gear icon
Filter Folders by 'Size'
Select and Delete large unnecessary cache folders

Remove Unnecessary Applications

Go to your Applications folder.
Right click the application you want to delete.
Click show package contents.
Click un-install application.
Drag the whole application to the trash.

Duplicate Files

Last but not least, your Mac is loaded with files, and chances are a lot of them may be duplicates. Remember when you downloaded that document, couldn’t find it and downloaded it again? All those useless copies, are taking up space! Sorting through all of these files can be cumbersome, luckily there are free programs that can do this. Here's a link to free duplicate finder -> http://macpaw.com/gemini

Bonus Content

Now that we are done, don't forget to empty your trash-can one last time to lock in the storage space.

Check this video if you are a visual learner, and want to learn how to clean your startup disk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVXMM2gqfE

If you still need additional storage upgrading your Hard-Drive may be the solution to your problem. However, it can be difficult to this without having to take apart your MacBook. Luckily, there is a new class storage product - TarDisk Pear 2.0 which can double a MacBooks storage, no tools required. TarDisk has combined hardware, software and firmware to create the worlds first plug and play hybrid drive for Macintosh computers. Indeed, TarDisk sits flush in the side of a MacBooks SD port and using the software Pear 2.0 it merges with the Macs internal HD to create a single expanded volume. Subsequently, TarDisk creates a cache in the MacBooks system that makes the read/write speeds negligible in difference. If you tried all of these steps and gained no results, this would be the solution to recommend to anyone facing a startup disk full problem.