Open-source RemoveMacAI deletes Apple Intelligence models and blocks their return on macOS

A new open-source command line tool called RemoveMacAI gives Mac owners a way to strip Apple Intelligence off their machines in one step: it switches off the AI features, deletes the on-disk foundation models, and prevents macOS from fetching them again. According to The Verge, the freed space amounts to roughly 12GB, and on some machines considerably more.

The off switch that disappeared

As The Verge explains, macOS once offered a single Settings toggle that turned Apple Intelligence off completely, but that option was removed in macOS 27. Since then, the AI features have been scattered across roughly a dozen separate settings, with a number of them buried under Screen Time. Even after disabling all of them, the underlying foundation models remain parked on the disk. The developer, announcing the tool in a Reddit post that MacRumors spotted first, put the leftover data at around 12GB.

What RemoveMacAI does

The tool bundles all of those scattered switches into a single operation. Running it disables Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT integration and the various AI summaries, then removes the downloaded models and blocks macOS from pulling them down again — effectively recreating what the old toggle used to do.

The developer claims the changes survive macOS updates, and that Dictation continues to work normally after the removal. There is also an escape hatch: a removemacai revert command restores every feature and lets the models download again, which lowers the risk for anyone who wants to try the tool without committing permanently.

A separate removemacai status command reports how much space each individual AI model is occupying on a given machine, so users can see the breakdown before deleting anything.

How much space you actually get back

The 12GB figure is a baseline rather than a ceiling. Commenters on the developer's Reddit thread reported that the footprint can grow well beyond that, and The Verge's own testing bore this out: on the reporter's MacBook Air, Apple Intelligence was listed at 35.05GB. That number was surfaced through the Settings app's storage view, by clicking the information icon next to the macOS entry. For anyone on a smaller SSD, the difference between 12GB and 35GB is substantial, which is presumably why the status command exists to show what a specific machine is actually carrying.

Why it matters

Two groups benefit here. The first is the storage-constrained: base-model Macs with 256GB drives lose a meaningful slice of capacity to AI models the owner may never use, and until now there was no supported way to reclaim it after the macOS 27 toggle was dropped. The second is privacy-minded users who simply do not want Apple's AI stack — or its ChatGPT integration — active on their hardware, and who previously had to hunt through a dozen settings only to find the models lingered anyway.

The tool also illustrates a broader tension in consumer operating systems: AI features are increasingly bundled, enabled and pre-downloaded by default, with removal options quietly narrowing. When vendors make their AI hard to uninstall, third-party utilities like this tend to appear to fill the gap. Because RemoveMacAI is open source, its code can be inspected before running it — a sensible precaution for any tool that deletes system files — and the revert command offers a path back for anyone who changes their mind after a future macOS update.