Photoshop’s “scratch disks are full” error usually occurs when there isn’t enough memory space on your computer to store Photoshop’s temporary files. As a result, Photoshop either crashes or does not load at all when this error occurs. However, there are a few things you can do in Photoshop to fix the “scratch disks are full” error. This includes allowing Photoshop to use more RAM and deleting temporary files in order to regain memory space.
Free-Up Memory Space On Your Computer
When the above error occurs, the first thing you should do is delete all junk files from your computer. This will free up memory space in Photoshop, which can then be used to store temporary files.
Check Your Storage On Mac
1- Click the Apple logo in the upper-left corner and select About This Mac.
2- Click Manage from the Storage menu at the top.
3- It will show what content is taking up how much space and will make recommendations to free up memory.
Check Your Storage On Windows
1- Open the Settings app.
2- On the following screen, click System.
3- Click Storage to view your computer’s storage information.
4- You’ll see what’s taking up how much memory. This will assist you in deciding what to delete.
Change The Scratch Disk On Startup
If you’ve assigned multiple scratch disks to Photoshop, you can actually switch between them when the program launches. When Photoshop doesn’t open due to the “scratch disks are full” error, this solution comes in handy.
1- Launch Photoshop on Windows and simultaneously press and hold the Ctrl and Alt keys.
2- Open Photoshop on a Mac and press and hold the Command and Option keys at the same time.
3- From the Startup dropdown menu, select a new scratch disk and click OK.
Delete Photoshop Temporary Files
Photoshop generates and saves temporary files to your Storage’s hard drive. After you’ve closed Photoshop, you can safely delete these files. This allows you to regain some memory space.
1- To open Run, press the Windows + R keys at the same time, then type the following into it and press Enter.
%temp%
2- When the temporary folder opens, look for files with the names Photoshop or PST.
3- Select Delete from the context menu when you right-click on those files.
4- Right-click your desktop’s Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin.
5- On a Mac, use Spotlight to search for and delete temporary files.
Disable The Auto Recovery Feature In Photoshop
Photoshop saves your files automatically as you work on them, but this increases the amount of memory it uses on your computer. If you don’t need auto-recovery saving, you can disable it off to save space on your scratch disks.
1- Open Photoshop on your computer.
2- At the top, click Photoshop, then Preferences, and then File Handling.
3- Uncheck the box labeled “Save Recovery Information Automatically Every.”
Change The Scratch Disk Drive In Photoshop
Photoshop, by default, only uses your operating System’s drive as the scratch disk. However, if you’ve multiple drives or partitions, you can tell Photoshop to use them instead of the “scratch disks are full” error.
1- Open Photoshop on your computer.
2- Select Preferences, then Performance from the Photoshop menu at the top.
3- In the Scratch Disks section, enable and disable scratch disks.
Delete The Photoshop Cache Files
When you make a change to an image in Photoshop, an older, unchanged version of the image is saved to your computer as a cache file. These files eventually grow in size and begin to consume too much of your memory space. You can clear these cache files to potentially fix the scratch disks error, but you will lose the ability to revert changes to your image.
1- Launch Photoshop on your computer.
2- Go to the top-right Edit menu, select Purge, and then select All. This will delete all Photoshop cache files.
Let Photoshop Use More RAM
Allowing Photoshop to use more RAM is one way to fix scratch disk issues. This will allow it to store more temporary files on your scratch disks’ RAM space.
1- Launch Photoshop on your computer.
2- Select Photoshop from the top menu, then Preferences, and finally Performance.
3- On the right-hand pane, look for a box labeled Let Photoshop Use. Enter the amount of RAM you want Photoshop to use in the box next to this option. Then click OK.
Defrag Your Hard Drive
It’s worthwhile to defrag your scratch disk drive in Windows in order to free up some continuous memory space for Photoshop to use. In addition, this should help you get rid of the app’s scratch disks error.
1- In the Start Menu, type Defrag and then click Defragment and Optimize Drives.
2- On the following screen, you’ll see a list of your hard drive partitions. Choose the one you use as your scratch disk and press the Optimize button.
Reset The Values For Crop Tool
Photoshop’s crop tool allows you to crop your photos to a specific size. If you specify the size in the wrong units, such as centimeters rather than pixels, you will end up with an extremely large image. Because that image takes up an amount of memory space, Photoshop displays the “scratch disks are full” error.
1- Open Photoshop and use the crop tool to remove any values from the given boxes.
2- When entering values, use pixels as the unit of measurement whenever possible.
Reset Photoshop Preferences
If you’ve made a lot of changes to your Photoshop preferences, one or more of those changes could be causing the problem. Resetting your Photoshop preferences to their defaults should fix the issue.
1- Close Photoshop on your computer.
2- To launch Photoshop, press and hold Shift + Ctrl + Alt (Windows) or Shift + Command + Option (Mac).
3- A prompt will appear asking if you want to delete the Photoshop settings file. To delete the files, click Yes.
How did you fix the Photoshop “scratch disks are full” error? Please let us and our readers know in the comments section below.
