RemoveMacAI turns off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and deletes its models, after Apple dropped the single off switchRemoveMacAI turns off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and deletes its models, after Apple dropped the single off switch

An open-source tool called RemoveMacAI turns off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and deletes the AI models Apple downloads to the Mac.

The project's GitHub page says macOS 27 no longer has a single switch for Apple Intelligence, and that its models stay on disk after the features are turned off. MacRumors, which covered the tool on 5 October, says it frees roughly 10GB to 12GB depending on which models a Mac holds. The repository was created on 29 September under the MIT licence and had passed 1,000 stars on GitHub by Monday. A Hacker News thread about it, posted on 4 October, drew more than 600 points.

How RemoveMacAI works

According to its documentation, the tool installs a configuration profile, which macOS makes the user approve in System Settings. The profile applies Apple's own restriction keys for Apple Intelligence and forces the settings that have no key. The models are then released through Apple's asset service rather than deleted by hand, so System Integrity Protection stays on and nothing under /System is modified directly. To stop macOS fetching them again, the profile points each model download at a closed local port. Removing the profile restores the previous settings, and macOS downloads the models again when a feature needs them.

There are options to keep named features on, to preview the changes without applying them, and to revert everything. The project says it makes no network requests and collects no data. It supports Apple silicon Macs on macOS 27 only, and says owners on macOS 27.0.1 need version 0.2.3 or later. It credits an earlier tool, pared, by a developer known as 4evy, with first mapping the asset service and several of the settings keys.

What stops working without the models?

Rather a lot. The project lists 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 predictive code completion in Xcode. It adds that Visual Intelligence, natural language editing in Calendar, the Use Model action in Shortcuts and any third-party app built on Apple's Foundation Models framework stop working too. Dictation is a separate setting and keeps working.

The developer gives two caveats. System Settings can go on counting the space under Apple Intelligence for a while, because macOS deletes released files on its own schedule. And, as MacRumors reports, some of the restriction keys the tool relies on were deprecated by Apple in macOS 26.4. They still work in macOS 27.0.1, with no guarantee for later versions.

Apple's support page says the new Apple Intelligence is available automatically on eligible devices after updating to macOS 27. It puts the storage cost at up to 14GB on Macs with an M3 or later and at least 12GB of unified memory, and up to 8GB on other supported Macs. The page describes no way to turn Apple Intelligence off as a whole. Apple has not commented on the tool.

Our take

The demand is easy to understand. We reported last month that Apple Intelligence now asks for up to 14GB of free space on the newest devices, and on a Mac with a 256GB drive that cannot be upgraded, ten gigabytes is a real share of the disk. Someone who never touches Writing Tools or Image Playground is paying for them in storage, and macOS 27 offers no setting that hands that space back. The tool exists because of a gap Apple left.

Its method is better than the old approach of switching off System Integrity Protection and deleting system files. It uses the same profile mechanism companies use to manage their Macs, and it can be undone. It is also fragile in a way that is plain to see. Apple has already deprecated some of the keys involved, and blocking a download with a local port is the kind of trick a future update could route around or treat as a fault. Anyone using it should expect to check it again after every major macOS release.

The bigger question is trust. The recommended install pipes a script from the internet straight into the shell, and the tool then asks for a configuration profile, one of the most powerful things a Mac user can approve. Most of the Hacker News discussion was about exactly that. This project publishes checksums and build attestations, which is more than most, but the habit it teaches is the one attackers rely on: earlier this month Jamf found a fake Zoom installer that talked Mac users past Gatekeeper. APPDOOK's advice is to run the dry run first, read the profile before approving it, and prefer the Homebrew route to the pasted command.

For app makers there is a quieter consequence. Every Mac with this profile is a Mac where Apple's on-device model is absent on hardware that would otherwise qualify. An app built on Apple's free on-device Foundation Models already has to handle the model being unavailable, for unsupported languages and for devices still downloading it. Tools like this make that path common rather than rare, so the fallback deserves the same care as the feature.