went past 4k this week, pretty wild for a repo that's 12 days old
it turns off apple intelligence on macOS 27, deletes the models it downloads and lets you undo every change
it's native swift and swiftui, MIT licensed
code's all here if you want to dig in or send a PR https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
for any artists on a mac, apple's AI image tools are built into macOS 27 and the models sit on your drive taking around 12 gigs
apple removed the one toggle for apple intelligence, it's a dozen settings now
i made a free open source app that turns all of it off, image playground, genmoji, writing tools, the summaries, and deletes the models so they don't download again
the AI stuff on 27 is spread across about a dozen settings now, some of them under screen time, and the models stay on disk anyway
so i made RemoveMacAI, it started as a cli and 1.0 is a proper app now
it goes through all of those settings for you and removes the models, and the block stays through updates since it's a configuration profile
if an update resets one of the other settings the app shows it as not applied and you can apply it again
you can keep any feature you actually use, and undo everything from the app
macOS 27 split the apple intelligence switch into about a dozen settings and the models still sit on disk at around 12 GB
i made RemoveMacAI for that and it can export its profile for MDM
removemacai export RemoveMacAI.mobileconfig --preset recommended writes the same configuration profile the app installs, the apple intelligence restrictions, the download block for removed models and the locked tweaks
--keep writing-tools if you want to leave a feature on, --no-ai if you only want the privacy stuff
per user things like finder and dock settings aren't in the profile, removemacai apply sets those on each mac, and removemacai tweaks --json reports the state of every tweak if you want it in an extension attribute
MIT, no network calls, SIP stays on
https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
curious if anything in it clashes with restrictions you already push
made this after the last post here, a lot of you said you'd use it if it wasn't a terminal thing
so 1.0 is a proper mac app now, same thing underneath
it turns apple intelligence off and deletes the models, and you can keep any feature you actually use
you see every change before it runs, and there's an undo page that puts everything back
it also does the stuff people asked for in the comments last time, analytics and ads off, the play key not opening music, other apps' background updaters, old installers and caches
SIP stays on the whole time and it doesn't make any network requests
free and open source: https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
heads up it's not notarized, so the first time you open it you'll need Open Anyway in Privacy & Security, or just use the install line in the readme
macOS 27 doesn't have one toggle for Apple Intelligence any more. You have to find about a dozen settings, and several of them are under Screen Time. Even when everything is off, the foundation models stay on disk, and that's about 12 GB.
I wrote RemoveMacAI to do all of it in one go. 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.
It uses a configuration profile you approve in System Settings plus Apple's own asset service, so SIP stays on and nothing in /System gets touched directly. removemacai revert removes the profile, and macOS downloads the models again when you turn a feature back on.
brew install omlahore/tap/removemacai, or there's a one-line installer in the readme. It's MIT licensed: https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI