Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back
- ID
- 31726
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 05 Oct 2026, 3:42 AM
- Fetched
- 05 Oct 2026, 7:43 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 05 Oct 2026, 7:44 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
RemoveMacAI is a small open-source tool (421 stars, 12 forks, 10 commits) that turns off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and deletes the AI models already downloaded to disk. Its premise is that macOS 27 dropped the single Apple Intelligence toggle and leaves models on disk even after features are switched off, so the tool disables features, removes models, and blocks re-download. It ships as a one-line curl|bash installer or Homebrew tap (brew install omlahore/tap/removemacai), with SHA-256 checksum verification, GitHub Actions build provenance attestation, a --dry-run mode, and a full revert command.
Why it matters
If you are on macOS 27 and assumed turning Apple Intelligence off freed the space, run `removemacai status` first — it reports each feature and the on-disk size of its models, so you can see the actual reclaim before committing. The --dry-run and `removemacai off --keep <features>` flags matter because the tool disables a long list including Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, Mail/Messages/Safari/Notes summaries, Mail smart replies, inline text predictions, Spatial Photos, Photos Clean Up and Xcode predictions — you likely want to keep some. Treat the curl|bash path as a trust decision: verify with `gh attestation verify removemacai-darwin-arm64.tar.gz -R omlahore/RemoveMacAI` or use the Homebrew tap instead.
Discussion angle
macOS 27 removing the single Apple Intelligence off switch — and leaving models on disk after you opt out — is the real story here; the script is just the workaround. Worth debating whether AI feature consent should be one toggle or per-feature, and whether you'd run a community curl|bash script (even with provenance attestation) on a work machine versus installing via Homebrew.