From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.misc


Get rid of the useless Apple Intelligence "AI" garbage and save storage
space ... win-win!!!


Low on Mac Storage? This Tool Reclaims Up to 12 GB
from Apple Intelligence
--------------------------------------------------
Remove hidden Apple Intelligence models and free up crucial
SSD space on your Mac

While macOS 27 Golden Gate finally brings the long-promised
Apple Intelligence features to Siri, along with several
other useful new features, that power comes at a cost: your
Mac's storage space.

Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 officially takes up roughly
10 GB to 12 GB of storage space -�although some users report
it eats up even more. That can be a problem for those folks
who own Macs with smaller SSDs installed, like the 256 GB
Mac mini or MacBook Neo.

The culprit is the artificial intelligence models that Apple
stores on your Mac's SSD. Unlike many other AI schemes, much
of Apple's AI processing is done locally, using only the
machine's resources to perform many of the tasks that other
AI providers do off-device, connecting to those AI data
centers we hear so much about in the news.

Apple's way is much more private than other AI systems, but
that privacy comes with a price tag in the form of SSD
storage space. And while you can turn off Siri, there is no
way to fully disable Apple Intelligence on your Mac.

Luckily, relief is available in the form of a utility that
helps Mac users reclaim the valuable storage space taken up
by Apple's AI models.

Before jumping in, though, let me strongly caution readers
who may be considering ways to regain storage space to please
be sure they understand exactly what happens when they use a
tool like the one I'm about to mention.

Once you are fully informed, then and only then should you
decide whether to use this tool. Also be aware that we here
at iDrop News are not endorsing this tool; we are merely
informing our readers of their options. Anyone using this app
does so at their own risk. We are not responsible for any
loss of data or loss of function.

As reported by Mactrast, a new open-source tool, called "
RemoveMacAI," is getting a lot of attention from Mac users in
search of ways to reclaim the large amounts of SSD storage
space taken up by Apple's AI models. The tool, by developer
Om Lahore, disables Apple Intelligence in macOS 27, deletes
its downloaded AI models, and then prevents them from being
automatically downloaded again.
RemoveMacAI: <https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI>

As the developer explains on Reddit, macOS 27 no longer has a
single toggle for Apple Intelligence. There are about a dozen
settings to fiddle with, and several of them are rather
buried, many in unusual places like Screen Time.
Reddit: <https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1ww1exr/macos_27_dropped_the_apple_intelligence_off/>


Even if you do find and toggle all of those various settings
to off, Apple's foundation models stay on your SSD,
continuing to take up gigabytes of precious space.
RemoveMacAI foils this by using a configuration profile to
switch off Apple's own asset management service and remove
the models.

"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 then configures the system to block attempts to download
the removed models by redirecting them to a closed local
port, preventing them from automatically and immediately
being restored. The developer says all of this is
accomplished without disabling System Integrity Protection
(SIP) or manually deleting files from protected system
locations.

While the developer says the�tool can free up somewhere
around 10 GB to 12 GB of storage space, depending on which
models are present on your Mac, some users are reporting
cases of the models having taken up a lot more space, which
they've now reclaimed by using the RemoveMacAI tool.

Keep in mind that when the Apple models are removed, your
access to all Siri AI-related features is also removed.
This includes Genmoji, Image Playground, Writing Tools,
summaries, smart replies, inline predictions, ChatGPT
integration, Photos Clean Up, Spatial Photos, and Xcode
predictive completion.

But if you're running tight on SSD space and you're not
using those features, it may be worth a try, particularly on
those Macs with just 256 GB of non-upgradable SSD storage.
The profile reportedly hangs in there across updates. And
dictation still works.

The project has attracted the attention of several thousand
Mac users, resulting in plenty of online discussion�on
Reddit and Hacker News about why such a tool is needed.�

Before deciding to use the RemoveMacAI tool, keep in mind
that the developer warns that some of the
configuration-profile restriction keys that the tool relies
on were deprecated by Apple in macOS 26.4. That means that
while they still work in macOS 27.0.1, a future update could
change that.



<https://www.idropnews.com/news/emove-apple-intelligence-models-reclaim-mac-storage/269247/>





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