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An open-source tool lets you delete 12GB of Apple Intelligence data on macOS

theverge.com13 points1 comments
Screenshot of An open-source tool lets you delete 12GB of Apple Intelligence data on macOS

An open-source command-line tool called RemoveMacAI lets macOS users remove Apple Intelligence models and switch off the associated AI features in one step, reclaiming gigabytes of storage. It was created because the single Settings toggle that used to disable Apple Intelligence was removed in macOS 27, leaving foundation models on disk even when features are turned off. RemoveMacAI turns off Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, summaries and related settings, deletes the on-device models (the developer estimates about 12 GB) and prevents macOS from downloading them again.

The developer says the removals persist across system updates and that dictation continues to work. The tool includes a removemacai revert command to restore settings and allow model downloads, plus a removemacai status command that reports the size of each model on disk. Users have reported larger Apple Intelligence footprints on some machines - one example showed 35.05 GB listed under macOS storage - so the actual savings can exceed the developer’s 12 GB estimate. The tool gives a straightforward way to free space and opt out of local AI models without hunting through multiple settings panes.

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