How to Solve "Scratch Disks are Full" Error in Photoshop

Confused how to solve the error “scratch disks are full” in Photoshop. Dont worry! With these few easy steps, your Photoshop will be back to normal.

Maybe it's not wrong to call Adobe Photoshop the best image and photo editor software. With a variety of features in it, you can manipulate images to suit your needs.

Even so, that does not mean this software is free of problems. Users are often faced with several problems such as the emergence of an invalid JPEG marker error or an invalid numeric entry error.

In addition to the two problems above, another problem that often confuses Photoshop users is the scratch disk error which will display one of the following messages,

• Could not complete your request because the scratch disks are full
• Could not complete the command because scratch disk are full
• Could not initialize Photoshop because the scratch disks are full
• Couldn’t create a new document because the scratch disks are full

If you experience it, take it easy. There are several ways to easily solve the scratch disks are full error in Photoshop.

Causes of “Scratch Disks Are Full” Error in Photoshop

Have you ever heard of the term cache/caching? In simple terms, cache is temporary data that an application needs so that the data exchange process can take place faster.

In Photoshop, scratch disks are used to store temporary files that hold the data being used by the software.

By default, the scratch disk will be on the drive where you installed Photoshop. But you can put it on another drive if necessary.

When the drive used by the scratch disk no longer has free space, an error message appears “scratch disks are full” will appear when we open or use existing features in Photoshop.

How to Solve the “Scratch Disks are Full” Error in Photoshop

In general, how to solve the scrach disks are full error in Photoshop is very easy. You just need to make sure that your drive has enough space. If not, you can delete the temp folder or other cache files that fill the drive as in the following example.

1. Clear Cache and Free Up Storage Space

The easiest way to free up space on a drive is to clear the cache located in the Windows temp folder.

To do this we can use the following methods:

• Manual – Use shortcuts Win+R then type %temp%. After that Windows will bring up the temp folder and you can delete all the files in it.
• Windows Disk Cleanup – To clean junk files with Windows default applications, click shortcut Win+S then search Disk Cleanup. After that select the drive to be cleaned and then follow the process.
• CCleaner – The easiest way to clean a drive in Windows is to use a third-party application like CCleaner. Download the file for free and then run the app to delete all the files you don't need.

2. Changing the Scratch Disk Location

Another alternative way to solve the scratch disks are full error in Photoshop is to change the location of the scratch disk. This will be very useful if the drive that you use as the location for the scratch drive is indeed too full even though it has been cleaned.

By default, the scratch disk is on the same drive as the Photoshop installation file. If you have several different drives, you can change their location to another drive.

To change it, you can follow the steps below.

• Open the Photoshop app
• Select a menu Edit ► Preferences ► Scratch Disks
• After that change the location by selecting another drive.
• Click button OK then restart Photoshop

3. Allow Photoshop to Use More RAM

Did you know that we can adjust the amount of RAM that can be used by Photoshop?

By increasing the amount of RAM that Photoshop can use, we can increase the performance of the software. That's why it is often used to solve Photoshop performance problems such as the error not enough memory in Photoshop. In addition, this also makes Photoshop use more RAM than scratch disks to store their temporary data.

To do this, you can do the following easy steps;

• Open the Photoshop app
• Select menu Edit ► Preferences ► Performances
• After that change the amount of RAM that can be used by entering a number in the box provided or using the slider below.
• If so, click OK then restart Photoshop

Scratch disk errors in Photoshop are not a big problem to worry about. In general, this problem arises because of the lack of storage space where the scratch disk is located. So if you can clean it, then this problem will go away by itself.