Photoshop ( Scratch Disks Full ) Error Fix

This guide will teach you how to fix the ‘ Scratch Disks are full ‘ error that appears in Photoshop.

  In my case, I split the C:/ Drive into 2 manageable areas, one for system files and the other for software and games for easy backup. This type of setup requires the use of symbolic links and dedication and will not be discussed in this guide.

Switch the Location of the Scratch Disks

If you are like me, or maybe you have a secondary drive with much more storage, this step will show you how to switch the default location of your Photoshop scratch disk. I am running Photoshop CS6 but it should apply to other versions.

Navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance 

In the performance tab, you are able to modify how much memory usage you want to dedicate to Photoshop. I am leaving those settings untouched for now but we are going to concentrate on Scratch Disks also found in the performance tab. The performance tab shows us which Scratch Disk is active and how much free space is available. In my case? None, lol. 

Let’s fix that. I am going to switch the active scratch disk by checking the D:// Drive (my storage for programs, games, etc.) and unchecking the C:// drive. Click Okay and you should receive no more errors. For verification purposes, I tried to reproduce the error by switching to the scratch disk with 0 space left but was unable to so this might work as a general fix even if a user has no secondary drive.

I did not need to close and restart Photoshop for the fix to be applied. I hope this guide was useful in getting rid of that pesky error.