Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back
RemoveMacAI is a new open-source utility for macOS 27 that turns off Apple Intelligence and reclaims the disk space used by its downloaded models. The motivation is that macOS 27 no longer provides a single switch for Apple Intelligence, and its models remain on disk even after the features are turned off. RemoveMacAI disables the features, removes the models, and prevents macOS from downloading them again; all changes can be reverted. A demo video is linked, and it can be installed via a one-line curl script or Homebrew.
The curl installer downloads the latest release, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and runs it from a temporary directory; nothing is installed. Every release is built from its tag by GitHub Actions and carries a build provenance attestation. Users can verify a download with `gh attestation verify removemacai-darwin-arm64.tar.gz -R omlahore/RemoveMacAI`. With Homebrew, the commands are `brew install omlahore/tap/removemacai` and then `removemacai`. When run, RemoveMacAI shows the current state and asks for confirmation; it then opens System Settings to install its configuration profile, which macOS requires the user to approve, and removes the models.
Usage commands include: `removemacai` to show the current state and then turn Apple Intelligence off; `removemacai status` to show each feature and the size of the models on disk; `removemacai off --keep <features>` to leave the listed features on; `removemacai off --dry-run` to show changes without applying them; `removemacai revert` to undo all changes; and `removemacai features` to list the feature names accepted by `--keep`. To revert via the one-line installer: `curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI/main/install.sh | bash -s revert`.
The features turned off include Siri (including 'Hey Siri' and the menu bar icon), Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, summaries in Mail, Messages, Safari, Notes, and notifications, Mail smart replies, inline text predictions, Spatial Photos, Photos Clean Up, and Xcode predictive code completion. Models removed include the Apple Intelligence foundation models and the models for image generation and Genmoji, Spatial Photos, Photos Clean Up, and Xcode code completion.
Mechanically, a configuration profile applies Apple's restriction keys for Apple Intelligence and forces the settings that have no restriction key. Models are removed through Apple's asset service. System Integrity Protection stays enabled and no files under /System are modified directly. The profile redirects the download of each removed model to a closed local port so macOS does not download it again. Removing the profile restores the previous settings, and macOS downloads the models again when a feature needs them. RemoveMacAI makes no network requests and collects no data.
The FAQ notes that dictation still works because it is a separate setting and its speech models are not removed. macOS updates do not undo the changes — the profile, including the download block, persists across updates. Storage settings still lists Apple Intelligence after the models have been deleted.