Free up at least 100 GB of space on your primary scratch disk drive.
Last updated on
20 Nov 2025
Resolve scratch disk errors by freeing up space, configuring additional drives, and optimizing Adobe Photoshop settings.
When working in Photoshop, you might encounter the "Scratch disk full" or "Scratch Disk Low" error message that could prevent you from continuing your work or even launching the application. This error occurs when Photoshop runs out of temporary storage space on your hard drive.
When the error occurs, you'll see a dialog box with the message Could not initialize Photoshop because the scratch disks are full or Could not complete your request because the scratch disks are full or a popup at startup that says Scratch Disk Low. Photoshop may freeze, crash, or refuse to launch entirely. You might also notice significantly slower performance before the error appears.
Your scratch disk drive doesn't have enough free space
Windows: Delete the files beginning with Photoshop Temp in C:\ drive.
macOS: Clean up your Macintosh HD drive or move files to an external drive.
Restart Photoshop to see if the error is resolved.
Set up additional scratch disks
You can set up additional scratch disks for the temporary files. Supported drive formats for scratch disks are APFS and macOS Extended (Journaled) for macOS, and NTFS, exFAT, and FAT32 for Windows.
Optimize Photoshop settings
The History States and auto-recovery features can consume significant scratch disk space during complex operations. These changes will reduce the amount of temporary data Photoshop needs to store, helping prevent scratch disk full errors.
Select Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows) or Photoshop > Settings > Performance (macOS).
Reduce the number of History States (default is 50) in the History & Cache section.
Select Edit > Preferences > File Handling (Windows) or Photoshop > Settings > File Handling (macOS).
Select Automatically Save Recovery Information if you're working with very large files.
Select OK and restart Photoshop.
Reset preferences
The Photoshop preference file may be corrupted, affecting how it handles scratch disks. Resetting preferences returns all settings to their defaults, but should fix any corruption issues affecting scratch disk functionality.
Close Photoshop completely.
Hold Shift + Alt + Ctrl (Windows) or Shift + Option + Command (macOS) while launching Photoshop.
Select Yes when prompted to delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file.
Reconfigure your scratch disk preferences after Photoshop launches.
Test if the scratch disk error has been resolved.
