When Mac users work with Photoshop or other software for photo and video editing, they face a problem with a full scratch disk that causes troubles with launching the program. Needless to say, this is a very annoying thing you should get rid of. In our short guide, we’ll provide readers with useful and effective hints on solving this issue easily without wasting your precious time and nerves.
But before we will tell how to clear the scratch disk on the Mac computer, let’s understand what this disk is. In fact, this is a hard drive partition that is used to save temporary files while the program is working. Graphic software like Photoshop uses a lot of working space that is also called cache memory. That’s why you need a scratch disk to make the process faster. For example, if your Mac has one hard drive, a scratch disk will be created on the drive where you have the OS installed.
When the scratch disk is clogged with temporary files, the system will notify you about it, and you see a message when you try to open Photoshop files or any other graphic design program’s files. When you have the error, you cannot use the software or open any files you are working on. Of course, the issue should be solved as soon as possible because it causes delays in your work. Here are the main ways on solving this problem easily:
- Clean up your hard drive manually. You need to search for useless and unnecessary files that were created during the work. It will help to clean up space on the drive and continue the program’s work. If there are some media files you would like to save and use later, we recommend moving these documents to the external drive.
- Remove temporary documents. As we already explained, Photoshop and other programs create many temporary files while they are working. Of course, these documents are saved on the drive and eat up space. You should find and remove these files to solve the problem.
- Use special software to clean up a scratch disk. You can use a reliable program that will help you to find and remove all the temporary and unnecessary files automatically without wasting your time.
So, the choice is yours. Sometimes people solve this problem by creating another scratch disk, but this isn’t a good decision because the new disk will be clogged again after some time. Plus, most Mac users have only one hard drive, so they can create one scratch disk on it. Feel free to continue reading effective tips on getting rid of this annoying problem and keep your Mac well-organized. This will help you to work on its maximum performance and get satisfied with what you’re doing.