A new tool is allowing Mac users the ability again to easily turn off Apple Intelligence with one click and free up to 12GB of storage.
Unlike with previous versions of macOS, macOS 27 Golden Gate doesn’t have a toggle for turning off Apple Intelligence. That makes disabling AI features that you may not want more difficult. It also means that the AI models necessary for running Apple Intelligence will take up space on your disk, even if you don’t use them or if you go through your settings to individually find and disable AI capabilities.
In response, a developer known as Om Lahore on GitHub last week created RemoveMacAI, a command-line tool that allows macOS 27 users to “turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27″ in a way that is “fully reversible,” per the GitHub page. They said that Apple’s Intelligence models take up “about 12GB,” but the models can actually take up over 30GB, The Verge noted.
RemoveMacAI “turns off Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, and all the summaries, then it deletes the models and stops macOS from downloading them again. Dictation still works because it’s a separate setting,” the developer said in a Reddit post first spotted by MacRumors.
On Reddit, RemoveMacAI’s developer said the tool is open source and further explained how it works:
It uses a configuration profile you approve in System Settings plus Apple’s own asset service, so [System Integrity Protection] stays on and nothing in /System gets touched directly. removemacai revert removes the profile, and macOS downloads the models again when you turn a feature back on.
The dev also said that it’s possible to remove only the Apple Intelligence features that you don’t want and to keep the others.
Some users on Reddit have reported that the tool works, and it has 1,700 stars on GitHub as of this writing.
Interest in RemoveMacAI demonstrates the aversion that some users have to some or all of Apple Intelligence’s features, despite growing focus from Apple on AI-driven device and software upgrades in its computers and other devices.
“Reminds me of all the de-crufting you’ve always needed to do when you install Windows. Looks like we’ve gotten to the point on macOS too, where you need to run third-party scripts on a new OS installation to gain back control of your system resources and remove unwanted crapware,” a Hacker News user wrote in response to RemoveMacAI.
Although many users are happy to leverage Apple Intelligence in their gadgets, RemoveMacAI is a simple way for the rest to regain the amount of control they have over Apple Intelligence’s presence on their computers that Apple previously offered.
