A command-line tool published last week lets macOS 27 users turn off Apple Intelligence in one go and recover up to 12GB of disk space.
Unlike previous versions of the operating system, macOS 27 Golden Gate has no toggle for turning Apple Intelligence off. That makes the features harder to disable, and it means the models needed to run them sit on the disk whether or not they are used, and whether or not the user has gone through settings to switch individual capabilities off.
The tool, RemoveMacAI, was posted to GitHub last week by a developer known there as Om Lahore, who describes it as a way to turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 that is "fully reversible".
In the developer's description, it "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."
On the mechanics, the developer wrote that the tool "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", adding that a revert command removes the profile and macOS downloads the models again when a feature is switched back on. Users can also remove only the features they do not want and keep the rest.
The size of the prize is disputed in the user's favour. The developer puts the models at about 12GB; The Verge has noted they can take up more than 30GB. The tool is open source and had 1,700 stars on GitHub as of Ars Technica's report, with users confirming it works. Commenters compared the exercise to the familiar routine of stripping unwanted software out of a new Windows installation.
All of this runs against the grain of Apple's own direction, which has put increasing emphasis on AI-driven upgrades across its computers and other devices.
It leaves the feature with an unusual specification. Most software is measured by what it does while running. Apple Intelligence can now also be measured by what it returns when it is not: about 12GB, and by one account more than 30.
This newspaper considers that the clearest figure yet published about the product. Its summarising, its image generation and its writing tools are all matters of judgement and taste. The 12GB is not. It is the same on every machine, it can be confirmed with a single command, and it is the only benefit that arrives at the moment the feature stops.
The reversibility completes the design. Because the tool is fully reversible, the 12GB can be handed back whenever the user wants the features again. Storage and intelligence are held in the same account, and the user chooses which of the two to be holding at any given time.
The removal of the toggle looks, in that light, like a decision rather than an oversight. A switch that turns something off implies the thing is optional. A disk that is 12GB fuller implies it is installed. By deleting the switch and keeping the models, macOS 27 settled the question in favour of the models, and a third-party script has reopened it at the level of the hardware.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has settled on the only measurement it trusts. Apple Intelligence occupies 12GB when present and nothing at all when absent, which makes the absence the more precisely specified of the two states, and the only one a user can confirm without having to ask it anything.