Please Help! Disk full after doing hours of printing on Apple Mac.

HappySad

I cleared up over 4Gb of space as my disk on my Apple Mac. OS 10.5.8. The more I printed the more disk space gets eaten up. I was not going anything else on the computer except printing. I now have well under a GB left and the more I print the less free disk space is available.


Please help! What can I do!?
Thanks

WTFH

What were you printing and how were you printing it?

HappySad

WTFH wrote: »

What were you printing and how were you printing it?

I am printing from my Ipad using an app called PrintPro. You print from this app then it appears as a print job on the printers job queue. I am printed Pages documents from the PrintPro app on my Ipad.

WTFH

Can you see what files are eating up the space?

Nada666

HappySad wrote: »

Please help! What can I do!?

A Restart will clear any temporary items [STRIKE]from [/STRIKE] that have gone through printer queues.

If caches aren't cleared with a restart you'll have to dig around to find where the app is sending the documents.

(But you should really not be running a desk- or laptop with only 4GB space in the first place!)

HappySad

WTFH wrote: »

Can you see what files are eating up the space?

I can not see any files eating up space.

Do you know where temp print files are kept? Do you know how to search for files created today? I have tried to search for files created today but can't see how to do it. Thanks ..

Nada666

Try this: (not my work)

Open a Finder window and hit Shift + Command + G , then copy and paste the following into the dialog box that appears: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches. Then hold down Command, and click and drag the Today, Yesterday, and/or Past Week files to the sidebar within Finder. Clicking any in future will show just the files as discussed previously. The search results will be mixed in with any apps you accessed the previous day, but you can click the Kind header in Finder to sort them so that your documents are separated out.

(That is for Lion, btw. Not sure if still works with Mavericks.)

HappySad

Nada666 wrote: »

Try this: (not my work)

Open a Finder window and hit Shift + Command + G , then copy and paste the following into the dialog box that appears: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches. Then hold down Command, and click and drag the Today, Yesterday, and/or Past Week files to the sidebar within Finder. Clicking any in future will show just the files as discussed previously. The search results will be mixed in with any apps you accessed the previous day, but you can click the Kind header in Finder to sort them so that your documents are separated out.

(That is for Lion, btw. Not sure if still works with Mavericks.)

My operating system in 10.5.8 I think that is Lion but when I click on the command button the I don't see anything to drag down for today or yesterday. I have tried to find the path "System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/CannedSearches" and I can't find that on the hard drive.

S0litaire

First STOP ALL PRINTING JOBS!!!!!!!!! ^_~

ok now the obvious is out of the way... lol

It's probably do to the way the OS handles printing jobs.

Before anything is sent to the printer it has to be converted into a format the printer can read (This is called "Spooling")

Usually the "spool" temp file is deleted after every print run (or reboot) but if you have been printing a lot of images the temp file can build up.

Not sure this will be the same on your OS but give it a go...

Browse to the following location :
/var/spool/cups/

Select the folder called "tmp" and check it's size.
If it's over a few 100Mb go into it and delete the contents you will need administrator or elevated privileges to do this, I've never used Apple Macs so unsure of the Admin restrictions...

It will be OK, it's a temp file and nothing in it will critical to the OS.

If all else fails reboot! That should empty all tmp files in your system.

In future do print runs in small batches. If it's a large document you can print in batches. (i.e. print from page 1 to 200 then from 201 to 400 etc...etc...) that should stop the build up of tmp files.

HappySad

S0litaire wrote: »

First STOP ALL PRINTING JOBS!!!!!!!!! ^_~

ok now the obvious is out of the way... lol

It's probably do to the way the OS handles printing jobs.

Before anything is sent to the printer it has to be converted into a format the printer can read (This is called "Spooling")

Usually the "spool" temp file is deleted after every print run (or reboot) but if you have been printing a lot of images the temp file can build up.

Not sure this will be the same on your OS but give it a go...

Browse to the following location :
/var/spool/cups/

Select the folder called "tmp" and check it's size.
If it's over a few 100Mb go into it and delete the contents you will need administrator or elevated privileges to do this, I've never used Apple Macs so unsure of the Admin restrictions...

It will be OK, it's a temp file and nothing in it will critical to the OS.

If all else fails reboot! That should empty all tmp files in your system.

In future do print runs in small batches. If it's a large document you can print in batches. (i.e. print from page 1 to 200 then from 201 to 400 etc...etc...) that should stop the build up of tmp files.

You are right! I have been sending my print jobs in very large batches. Only 30 pages at a time; but my very old mac can't cope. I have found the var/spool/cups/ folder and I cannot see what size it is or see contents as I "don't have permission". It has a small red cross symbol on the folder Cups. My partner says he does not know the password for the other login. So I think we cannot log in with the right permission to delete it's contents. Could I trash / delete this folder then create the same folder back again with the same name?

S0litaire

Have you tried a reboot?