MacBook Air memory issues-start up disc?

[monkeysmama]

Every time I switch on my MacBook Air it says the start up disc is full and I need to delete files.

I mainly use my laptop for photos so imagine this is what it taking all the memory up. I also synch my iphone and apps to it.

This is probably a really silly question but I don't know how to delete files from the start up disc (or even what it is as there aren't any "discs" / no disc drive)

Any advice greatly appreciated.

TIA.

Ah the joys of Mac's. Are all your photos in iphoto or just stored on the computer?

In a Macbook air, you will only have one disk. Just delete as many photos as you can. You may want to export them to an external drive first.......

All my photos are in iphoto. I am actually having a real issue with my iphone too - am trying to clear photos from iphone onto MacBook but they both have memory issues.

I think it is time to buy an external hard drive. Any recommendations?

Basically your disk is full. You won't be able to do much with anything until you sort that problem out.

The problem is iphoto works funny. It actually stores all the photos in a database rather than as seperate files. So you can't just move some off onto an external hard disk and still access them.

I love iPhoto but this is one of the reasons I refuse to use it as my primary method of storing photos.

What I'm trying to say is that you can get an external hard drive but it's not really going to be a seamless experience for you.

Do you have another computer? With a proper hard disk in rather than the small but brilliant SSD drive in the Macbook Air?

If you do, what I'd suggest is do what I do. Store your photos there and just import your favourites into iphoto instead.

If you do decide to get an external hard disk then go for a portable one rather than a desktop one. Plenty of drives here to choose from. I'd say a 500GB one should be more than enough! But be warned....only use the external drive as a backup. Not a single place to store stuff. Otherwise one day it will break and you'll be stuffed.

Good luck

That's all really helpful. No, at the moment we have an iPad, MacBook and an older Sony laptop. Will have to think about what to do.