Open-source tool purges Apple Intelligence from macOS

A newly released open-source command-line utility called RemoveMacAI offers Mac users a way to completely excise Apple Intelligence from their systems. Developed to address the lack of a simple off-switch in the operating system, the tool disables Apple's AI features, deletes the underlying foundation models, and prevents macOS from automatically downloading them again in the future.

Previously, Apple included a single toggle in the system settings to disable its AI suite, but this option was removed in macOS 27. Consequently, users who want to opt out of the AI features must navigate roughly a dozen different settings panes, including several located under Screen Time. Even after manually disabling these features, the massive foundation models remain stored on the local disk, quietly consuming valuable storage space.

RemoveMacAI automates this tedious process by turning off Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, and notification summaries in a single step. According to the developer, removing these components reclaims "about 12GB" of disk space, though the actual savings could be much higher. Some users have reported that Apple Intelligence files occupy up to 35.05GB of storage under the macOS system category.

The tool's modifications are designed to persist across macOS updates, ensuring that the operating system does not reinstall the heavy models during subsequent system patches. Dictation functionality remains unaffected by the purge. For users who change their minds, the utility includes a revert command to restore all settings and allow the models to download again, alongside a status command to inspect the size of individual AI models on the drive.