3 ms·

Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac

128 points by alwillis 5d ago

k310 5d ago
This applies to MacOS 26. On iOS 27, it looks like changing the settings for eight different apps taking 5 or 6 steps each. https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53 https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53 Original: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligence-features-ios-27/ https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligenc...
- getpost 5d ago
  Select the version from the pulldown menu at the top left of the screen.
iAMkenough 5d ago
Note that storage space taken up by local models is not reclaimed and remains dormant on your Mac until you're nearly out of space.
- totetsu 5d ago
  They cant take up that free space if it was already full in the first place..
- rgovostes 5d ago
  Philosophically, what is the difference between empty space and space that will be reclaimed when you need it? The storage medium tracks whether a cell or sector is overwritable. The filesystem tracks whether a block is allocated. And the OS tracks whether a cache is evictable. At what layer do you consider the space “claimed”?
  - paper2d 5d ago
    Realistically, the 'claim space' service needs to run when the OS 'thinks' it has run out of space to reclaim it. And there can be M amount of waiting time for this and N number of issues that may arrive with it.
  - kccqzy 5d ago
    In practice the difference is whether the code that does this reclaiming is actually working. I’ve never gotten my Mac into a low disk space situation (other than maybe in Leopard days) but on iOS, it is quite frequent for me to trigger a situation where the free space including purgeable space is many gigabytes but actual free space is nil. Trying to commit a transaction in a SQLite database in an app? Sorry you can’t, there’s no space left on device. Now go to settings and observe that you have 15 GB left (which includes purgeable space). Even SpringBoard has trouble showing icons. I do not trust Apple’s OS level disk space purging at all. I trust the filesystem and the storage medium more.
  - acuozzo 5d ago
    > Philosophically, what is the difference between empty space and space that will be reclaimed when you need it? It makes large allocations fail which would have otherwise succeeded. "When you need it" is a state you can only enter into, AFAICT, when you approach the limit gradually, not abruptly.
  - ProfessorLayton 5d ago
    I haven't run into this on macOS yet, but on iOS the space is not reclaimed in time to avoid running out of space even with Apple Intelligence turned off: - Not enough space to update iOS without a computer tether, even though there would have been if that ~13GB on my phone was actually freed up. Instead I had to delete several GB on my phone. - Recordings stopping due to lack of space, and again the 13GB LLM model on my phone was not removed before running into this. I'm actually not where if/when I'll ever get my space back, and this is on iOS 26. It takes up even more space on iOS 27, and I don't have enough free space to waste on my 256GB phone.
bflesch 5d ago
Funny how Apple has reached the crapware maturity level that Microsoft users are quite familiar with: After first boot, go through a long list of things to deactivate so that one can experience at least some feeling of agency and privacy when using your own hardware.
- ASalazarMX 5d ago
  I'd expect turning off Siri as a whole, which is very easy, would be enough. The list is for people who still want to use Siri after it became a OS-level LLM, I mean, Apple Intelligence.
- ryandrake 5d ago
  It's the "agency" bit that really annoys me. The Computer is no longer Personal. I expect my personal computer to only do things that I choose to invoke. It should not do a laundry list of things that the device manufacturer wants it to do, nor a laundry list of things the OS vendor wants it to do. I shouldn't have to turn things off. They shouldn't be on to begin with, unless I deliberately turned them on. Of course this doesn't extend to obvious things like "running the kernel" and "initializing the filesystem." But in general I want to be the person responsible for running things, not some product manager 3,000 miles away in Silicon Valley.
  - arcanemachiner 5d ago
    > The Computer is no longer Personal. I expect my personal computer to only do things that I choose to invoke. The internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the personal computer user.
    - Terr_ 5d ago
      Yeah, whatever happened to the personal computer, a kind of capital equipment available to the masses, something you own and can direct towards your goals and wellbeing? Instead it's like we're sharecropping on a device companies have established as a colonial outpost to monitor us for profitable compliance.
strictnein 5d ago
The thing that's weird about Apple's "Intelligence" features is how dumb they are. I messaged one of my kids yesterday that the pizza I made was ready and that I was out in the backyard with our dogs. Genmoji (or whatever it's called) then decided to suggest that I make a new Emoji with pizzas in a yard. It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.
- doc_ick 5d ago
  Still better then Microsoft.
  - hatsix 5d ago
    I've never had Microsoft read a message, initiate an AI generation, then attempt to inject that into my conversation. Not to say they wouldn't try...
    - devmor 5d ago
      They’re too busy taking screenshots of your desktop every 2 seconds to datamine your interests in order to sell ads injected into the start menu.
- coldpie 5d ago
  Many bothans died to bring you that suggestion to make a new emoji of pizzas in a yard.
- juancn 5d ago
  It's the price you pay for privacy
- psygn89 5d ago
  Mmm, freshly grown yard pizzas, just like AI ~~used to~~ currently makes.
parable 5d ago
Is it possible to block Apple Intelligence from sending data over the Internet via Little Snitch? I would assume it is, but I'm not sure if anything significant has changed in macOS 27 that makes this impossible now. I don't really mind the local features - I'd rather they stay disabled, but it's not the end of the world - but I really don't want any data leaving my Mac.
- ActorNightly 5d ago
  Apple OS will bypass any user space firewall. You can verify this yourself. Get an old laptop to act as a wifi hotspot and forward traffic over usb ethernet adapter to your actual router. Then run tcpdump on the computer. You will see the multitude of phone-home traffic.
  - arcanemachiner 5d ago
    Non-macOS user here. Does macOS not let you run things as root?
    - nhubbard 5d ago
      It does let you run things as root.
      - VCFundedGenYer 5d ago
        Not exactly. What is "root" in macOS is more or less a power user role. Apple took away the true ability to operate as root a long time ago with System Integrity Protection which walls off the critical parts of the OS from the user entirely. Unfortunately, SIP also restricts basic system functions that are trivial in other OSes. Apple made this very difficult, and MS would have loved to do this in Vista had they not received the backlash that they did.
        frizlab 5d ago
        You can disable SIP if you want. You can run whatever you want on your machine. Disabling SIP is indeed a security risk… then again, so is running something as root. Having a Mac w/o SIP is no more a security risk than having a Linux w/o a r/o kernel AFAIK.
JumpCrisscross 5d ago
Why did they nerf the keyboard interface to Siri? Before, it was ⌘⌘ and you could type out something for Siri to fuck up. Now, we have to turn off “Hey Siri” and then click on the Siri app or meander our way through Spotlight. I talk to my phone. I type to my laptop.
- wat10000 5d ago
  Cmd-space, type, done.
  - lynndotpy 5d ago
    I'm not sure what configuration you have, but this does not send requests to Siri a-la the "cmd-cmd <type to siri>" flow.
    - wat10000 5d ago
      It does as long as you've typed something that doesn't match an app. "Safari" and enter will open Safari. "What is safari" and enter will ask Siri the question and show the answer.
      - JumpCrisscross 5d ago
        > does as long as you've typed something that doesn't match an app A check which, at least on my beloved 2020 M1 MacBook Pro, involves a noticeable delay.
- petu 5d ago
  > meander our way through Spotlight By that you mean that just typing prompt into Spotlight doesn't work reliably? For me after few words "Ask Siri" is first result.
  - JumpCrisscross 5d ago
    It’s a laggy modal. For the operating system’s native-sometimes-local AI, I’d have expected something snappier.
pdpi 5d ago
Clearly, nobody at Apple is thinking globally about this stuff. If you have kids, "Screen Time" is a reasonable enough name for the place where parental controls live. If you work under the assumption that AI features are OK in general, but potentially problematic around kids in particular, parental controls are a reasonable enough place to put these AI controls. If you're not a parent, and have broader concerns about AI, you'd never even think of looking for these options where they are.
- deleted 5d ago
  [deleted]
- CodingJeebus 5d ago
  As someone who has spent a lot of time trying to configure my iOS/Mac experience to be more intentional/less addictive, I am intimately familiar with Screen Time at this point. And my gut says this isn't an oversight on Apple's part at all. This is very intentional because in my experience, Apple's attempt at actually managing screen time and device access is mostly theater, and it absolutely tracks that they'd bury this config within Screen Time.
- tpmoney 5d ago
  It's very weird that these aren't in the already existing top level "Siri" or "Privacy & Security" settings tabs. Apple has had a problem for a while now where it seems like they just don't know what they want to do with the settings app, and like you said, doesn't have anyone in charge of the "global" view of the settings. Why are, "Appearance", "Desktop & Dock" and "Wallpaper" all different top level items? Why are "Wi-Fi" and "Network" different top level items? Why is "Battery" top level, but "Time Machine" and "Sharing" and "Date & Time" are all under "General"? Why is "Autofill & Passwords" under general and not "Privacy & Security"?
Mindwipe 5d ago
It's really frustrating that there is no ability to reclaim the drive space in MacOS 27, especially on Macbooks with M1 or M2 chips that can barely use the models. Another great sign of how the OS is deeply on fire IMO.
- rvz 5d ago
  Especially iPhones. You can’t determine what is taking up space on your iPhone in the “system data” or “Other” section in iOS. The only way to “reduce” it is to restore and wipe the phone. That is a scam.
reaperducer 5d ago
Missing from Apple's list is the feature that suggest filenames. At first, it was very cool and did a good job with plain text files, and even a PDF. Then it munged the names of several hundred files I was working with that was each named with a street address. Finder → Settings → Suggest file names
VCFundedGenYer 5d ago
I want the disk space taken from the models back. I will never touch this garbage and would rather use the disk space I purchased to be used for my purposes, not the industry's pointless fad bubble endeavors.
- wartywhoa23 5d ago
  Same here!
- mort96 5d ago
  Absolutely 100%. Now I'm very biased against this "AI" stuff in general, but even fans of "AI" can't want this, right? I mean I know some people who are heavy "AI" users and they all either have a setup with Cursor/Codex/Zed/VSCode/whatever or their preferred local model, they'd never ever want to use "whatever Apple happens to ship with the OS". Same with the model Google bundled into their browser, growing Chrome from roughly 200MB to over 4GB. Who's the target audience here? It's investors isn't it.
  - logancbrown 5d ago
    You can't imagine a singular person and reason who would want an improved Siri?
    - mort96 5d ago
      On their laptop? No, not really. I guess the selling point is that your computer now suggests file names for you?
      - wat10000 5d ago
        The selling point is being able to say things like "remind me about the next early release from school the night before" and it'll dig up the info from your emails and then create the reminder.
        5d ago
zzyzxd 5d ago
I would never have figured out the toggle for writing tools is in `Settings -> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Siri -> Writing Assistance`
- fooker 5d ago
  It's searchable
  - Forgeties79 5d ago
    Normally I'd say that's at least somewhat valid but Apple also has a nasty habit of coming up with new names for things everyone else had a name for for 30 years already. Then they do bizarre things like when I tried to help my mom with her airpod settings the other day - searching "airpod" gave no hits. I mean...what?
    - fooker 5d ago
      Searching for "airpod" in settings brings up - Accessibility, "Headphones/AirPods/Beats", Conversation Boost, Noise Cancellation, Press and hold duration, Press speed, Transparency mode Not sure what went wrong for you, these results seem pretty much on point.
      - Forgeties79 5d ago
        This literally happened yesterday. It tried to bring me to a safari search and I got no other hits. Could've been just a buggy moment with search who knows.
  - m463 5d ago
    It (purposefully?) doesn't find everything. For instance (this is just sequoia, but same for ios) searching for "improve" finds: "improve assistive voice features" (I turned it off) and diagnostic & usage data with: "improve siri & dictation" (I turned it off) but under spotlight, it doesn't find "help apple improve search" (I turned that off too)
- 5d ago
todfox 5d ago
The Write with Siri button that shows up whenever I select text is so obnoxious that I want to trash this fucking machine after 30+ years on the platform.
variety8675 5d ago
Hopefully someone will make a script or small app to disable all of this in one click
wartywhoa23 5d ago
Apple, we want one global killswitch and a way to free disk space occupied by unused models.
Lio 5d ago
It's great that you can turn all this off but why is it tucked away in Screen Time of all places? What's the thinking behind that?
- bel8 5d ago
  Either dark pattern or incompetence. Sometimes both.

128 points by alwillis 5d ago

k310 5d ago

This applies to MacOS 26. On iOS 27, it looks like changing the settings for eight different apps taking 5 or 6 steps each. https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53 https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53 Original: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligence-features-ios-27/ https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligenc...

getpost 5d ago
Select the version from the pulldown menu at the top left of the screen.

iAMkenough 5d ago

Note that storage space taken up by local models is not reclaimed and remains dormant on your Mac until you're nearly out of space.

totetsu 5d ago
They cant take up that free space if it was already full in the first place..
rgovostes 5d ago
Philosophically, what is the difference between empty space and space that will be reclaimed when you need it? The storage medium tracks whether a cell or sector is overwritable. The filesystem tracks whether a block is allocated. And the OS tracks whether a cache is evictable. At what layer do you consider the space “claimed”?
- paper2d 5d ago
  Realistically, the 'claim space' service needs to run when the OS 'thinks' it has run out of space to reclaim it. And there can be M amount of waiting time for this and N number of issues that may arrive with it.
- kccqzy 5d ago
  In practice the difference is whether the code that does this reclaiming is actually working. I’ve never gotten my Mac into a low disk space situation (other than maybe in Leopard days) but on iOS, it is quite frequent for me to trigger a situation where the free space including purgeable space is many gigabytes but actual free space is nil. Trying to commit a transaction in a SQLite database in an app? Sorry you can’t, there’s no space left on device. Now go to settings and observe that you have 15 GB left (which includes purgeable space). Even SpringBoard has trouble showing icons. I do not trust Apple’s OS level disk space purging at all. I trust the filesystem and the storage medium more.
- acuozzo 5d ago
  > Philosophically, what is the difference between empty space and space that will be reclaimed when you need it? It makes large allocations fail which would have otherwise succeeded. "When you need it" is a state you can only enter into, AFAICT, when you approach the limit gradually, not abruptly.
- ProfessorLayton 5d ago
  I haven't run into this on macOS yet, but on iOS the space is not reclaimed in time to avoid running out of space even with Apple Intelligence turned off: - Not enough space to update iOS without a computer tether, even though there would have been if that ~13GB on my phone was actually freed up. Instead I had to delete several GB on my phone. - Recordings stopping due to lack of space, and again the 13GB LLM model on my phone was not removed before running into this. I'm actually not where if/when I'll ever get my space back, and this is on iOS 26. It takes up even more space on iOS 27, and I don't have enough free space to waste on my 256GB phone.

bflesch 5d ago

Funny how Apple has reached the crapware maturity level that Microsoft users are quite familiar with: After first boot, go through a long list of things to deactivate so that one can experience at least some feeling of agency and privacy when using your own hardware.

ASalazarMX 5d ago
I'd expect turning off Siri as a whole, which is very easy, would be enough. The list is for people who still want to use Siri after it became a OS-level LLM, I mean, Apple Intelligence.
ryandrake 5d ago
It's the "agency" bit that really annoys me. The Computer is no longer Personal. I expect my personal computer to only do things that I choose to invoke. It should not do a laundry list of things that the device manufacturer wants it to do, nor a laundry list of things the OS vendor wants it to do. I shouldn't have to turn things off. They shouldn't be on to begin with, unless I deliberately turned them on. Of course this doesn't extend to obvious things like "running the kernel" and "initializing the filesystem." But in general I want to be the person responsible for running things, not some product manager 3,000 miles away in Silicon Valley.
- arcanemachiner 5d ago
  > The Computer is no longer Personal. I expect my personal computer to only do things that I choose to invoke. The internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the personal computer user.
  - Terr_ 5d ago
    Yeah, whatever happened to the personal computer, a kind of capital equipment available to the masses, something you own and can direct towards your goals and wellbeing? Instead it's like we're sharecropping on a device companies have established as a colonial outpost to monitor us for profitable compliance.

strictnein 5d ago

The thing that's weird about Apple's "Intelligence" features is how dumb they are. I messaged one of my kids yesterday that the pizza I made was ready and that I was out in the backyard with our dogs. Genmoji (or whatever it's called) then decided to suggest that I make a new Emoji with pizzas in a yard. It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.

doc_ick 5d ago
Still better then Microsoft.
- hatsix 5d ago
  I've never had Microsoft read a message, initiate an AI generation, then attempt to inject that into my conversation. Not to say they wouldn't try...
  - devmor 5d ago
    They’re too busy taking screenshots of your desktop every 2 seconds to datamine your interests in order to sell ads injected into the start menu.
coldpie 5d ago
Many bothans died to bring you that suggestion to make a new emoji of pizzas in a yard.
juancn 5d ago
It's the price you pay for privacy
psygn89 5d ago
Mmm, freshly grown yard pizzas, just like AI ~~used to~~ currently makes.

parable 5d ago

Is it possible to block Apple Intelligence from sending data over the Internet via Little Snitch? I would assume it is, but I'm not sure if anything significant has changed in macOS 27 that makes this impossible now. I don't really mind the local features - I'd rather they stay disabled, but it's not the end of the world - but I really don't want any data leaving my Mac.

ActorNightly 5d ago
Apple OS will bypass any user space firewall. You can verify this yourself. Get an old laptop to act as a wifi hotspot and forward traffic over usb ethernet adapter to your actual router. Then run tcpdump on the computer. You will see the multitude of phone-home traffic.
- arcanemachiner 5d ago
  Non-macOS user here. Does macOS not let you run things as root?
  - nhubbard 5d ago
    It does let you run things as root.
    - VCFundedGenYer 5d ago
      Not exactly. What is "root" in macOS is more or less a power user role. Apple took away the true ability to operate as root a long time ago with System Integrity Protection which walls off the critical parts of the OS from the user entirely. Unfortunately, SIP also restricts basic system functions that are trivial in other OSes. Apple made this very difficult, and MS would have loved to do this in Vista had they not received the backlash that they did.
      - frizlab 5d ago
        You can disable SIP if you want. You can run whatever you want on your machine. Disabling SIP is indeed a security risk… then again, so is running something as root. Having a Mac w/o SIP is no more a security risk than having a Linux w/o a r/o kernel AFAIK.

JumpCrisscross 5d ago

Why did they nerf the keyboard interface to Siri? Before, it was ⌘⌘ and you could type out something for Siri to fuck up. Now, we have to turn off “Hey Siri” and then click on the Siri app or meander our way through Spotlight. I talk to my phone. I type to my laptop.

wat10000 5d ago
Cmd-space, type, done.
- lynndotpy 5d ago
  I'm not sure what configuration you have, but this does not send requests to Siri a-la the "cmd-cmd <type to siri>" flow.
  - wat10000 5d ago
    It does as long as you've typed something that doesn't match an app. "Safari" and enter will open Safari. "What is safari" and enter will ask Siri the question and show the answer.
    - JumpCrisscross 5d ago
      > does as long as you've typed something that doesn't match an app A check which, at least on my beloved 2020 M1 MacBook Pro, involves a noticeable delay.
petu 5d ago
> meander our way through Spotlight By that you mean that just typing prompt into Spotlight doesn't work reliably? For me after few words "Ask Siri" is first result.
- JumpCrisscross 5d ago
  It’s a laggy modal. For the operating system’s native-sometimes-local AI, I’d have expected something snappier.

pdpi 5d ago

Clearly, nobody at Apple is thinking globally about this stuff. If you have kids, "Screen Time" is a reasonable enough name for the place where parental controls live. If you work under the assumption that AI features are OK in general, but potentially problematic around kids in particular, parental controls are a reasonable enough place to put these AI controls. If you're not a parent, and have broader concerns about AI, you'd never even think of looking for these options where they are.

deleted 5d ago
[deleted]
CodingJeebus 5d ago
As someone who has spent a lot of time trying to configure my iOS/Mac experience to be more intentional/less addictive, I am intimately familiar with Screen Time at this point. And my gut says this isn't an oversight on Apple's part at all. This is very intentional because in my experience, Apple's attempt at actually managing screen time and device access is mostly theater, and it absolutely tracks that they'd bury this config within Screen Time.
tpmoney 5d ago
It's very weird that these aren't in the already existing top level "Siri" or "Privacy & Security" settings tabs. Apple has had a problem for a while now where it seems like they just don't know what they want to do with the settings app, and like you said, doesn't have anyone in charge of the "global" view of the settings. Why are, "Appearance", "Desktop & Dock" and "Wallpaper" all different top level items? Why are "Wi-Fi" and "Network" different top level items? Why is "Battery" top level, but "Time Machine" and "Sharing" and "Date & Time" are all under "General"? Why is "Autofill & Passwords" under general and not "Privacy & Security"?

Mindwipe 5d ago

It's really frustrating that there is no ability to reclaim the drive space in MacOS 27, especially on Macbooks with M1 or M2 chips that can barely use the models. Another great sign of how the OS is deeply on fire IMO.

rvz 5d ago
Especially iPhones. You can’t determine what is taking up space on your iPhone in the “system data” or “Other” section in iOS. The only way to “reduce” it is to restore and wipe the phone. That is a scam.

reaperducer 5d ago

Missing from Apple's list is the feature that suggest filenames. At first, it was very cool and did a good job with plain text files, and even a PDF. Then it munged the names of several hundred files I was working with that was each named with a street address. Finder → Settings → Suggest file names

VCFundedGenYer 5d ago

I want the disk space taken from the models back. I will never touch this garbage and would rather use the disk space I purchased to be used for my purposes, not the industry's pointless fad bubble endeavors.

wartywhoa23 5d ago
Same here!
mort96 5d ago
Absolutely 100%. Now I'm very biased against this "AI" stuff in general, but even fans of "AI" can't want this, right? I mean I know some people who are heavy "AI" users and they all either have a setup with Cursor/Codex/Zed/VSCode/whatever or their preferred local model, they'd never ever want to use "whatever Apple happens to ship with the OS". Same with the model Google bundled into their browser, growing Chrome from roughly 200MB to over 4GB. Who's the target audience here? It's investors isn't it.
- logancbrown 5d ago
  You can't imagine a singular person and reason who would want an improved Siri?
  - mort96 5d ago
    On their laptop? No, not really. I guess the selling point is that your computer now suggests file names for you?
    - wat10000 5d ago
      The selling point is being able to say things like "remind me about the next early release from school the night before" and it'll dig up the info from your emails and then create the reminder.
      - 5d ago

zzyzxd 5d ago

I would never have figured out the toggle for writing tools is in `Settings -> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Siri -> Writing Assistance`

fooker 5d ago
It's searchable
- Forgeties79 5d ago
  Normally I'd say that's at least somewhat valid but Apple also has a nasty habit of coming up with new names for things everyone else had a name for for 30 years already. Then they do bizarre things like when I tried to help my mom with her airpod settings the other day - searching "airpod" gave no hits. I mean...what?
  - fooker 5d ago
    Searching for "airpod" in settings brings up - Accessibility, "Headphones/AirPods/Beats", Conversation Boost, Noise Cancellation, Press and hold duration, Press speed, Transparency mode Not sure what went wrong for you, these results seem pretty much on point.
    - Forgeties79 5d ago
      This literally happened yesterday. It tried to bring me to a safari search and I got no other hits. Could've been just a buggy moment with search who knows.
- m463 5d ago
  It (purposefully?) doesn't find everything. For instance (this is just sequoia, but same for ios) searching for "improve" finds: "improve assistive voice features" (I turned it off) and diagnostic & usage data with: "improve siri & dictation" (I turned it off) but under spotlight, it doesn't find "help apple improve search" (I turned that off too)
5d ago

todfox 5d ago

The Write with Siri button that shows up whenever I select text is so obnoxious that I want to trash this fucking machine after 30+ years on the platform.

variety8675 5d ago

Hopefully someone will make a script or small app to disable all of this in one click

wartywhoa23 5d ago

Apple, we want one global killswitch and a way to free disk space occupied by unused models.

Lio 5d ago

It's great that you can turn all this off but why is it tucked away in Screen Time of all places? What's the thinking behind that?

bel8 5d ago
Either dark pattern or incompetence. Sometimes both.