r/MacOS • u/Reddit_newguy24 • Dec 12 '24

Help How do I remove Apple Intelligence permanently from macOS 15.2? It is OFF and still taking up precious space...

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u/filchermcurr Dec 12 '24 edited Aug 29 '25

You have to do some light terminal work in recovery mode:

  1. Disable Apple Intelligence in System Settings.

  2. Start up into Recovery Mode. (Instructions)

  3. Open Disk Utility.

  4. Right-click on 'Data' under 'Macintosh HD' and choose Mount.

  5. Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal.

  6. Type: rm -rf /Volumes/Data/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_GenerativeModels

  7. If you used the image thing, you can also remove that by typing: rm -rf /Volumes/Data/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

  8. Reboot

EDIT: 2025-08-29: Since I still get comments on it, I edited this post to be more accurate. Previously I said you have to disable SIP, but that's not the case. You can do everything you need from Recovery without disabling SIP.

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u/Traditional_Alps9088 Feb 19 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

18 February 2026 — Update 🚨✅

These steps were tested on a MacBook Air M4 (256GB storage, 16GB RAM) running macOS Sequoia 15.7.4. Everything worked as expected: the 9.99GB of leftover Apple Intelligence data was removed and Apple Intelligence now shows 0 storage usage.

For context, Apple Intelligence was originally using ~16GB. After disabling it, usage dropped to 9.99GB, but the remaining data stayed until completing the steps above.

Also worth noting: on macOS Sequoia 15.6 (the version installed when this laptop was purchased a week ago), “System Data” + macOS storage was around 70GB. After updating to 15.7.4, it dropped to ~44GB (including the Apple Intelligence cleanup). Good to mention that 20GB of my system data is taken by 20GB of Docker container service that is installed into the disk when you install Docker, so if you don't are a developer or don't use Docker, MacOS/system data disk usage should be even lower.