How to remove local Apple Intelligence files from Mac

Find out how to get rid of gigabytes of local Apple Intelligence files from your Mac to free up space (albeit temporarily, more on it below).

When you enable Apple Intelligence in Siri settings on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, the feature automatically downloads a lot of files and saves them to local storage. Among other things, the local files are used for tools like image cleanup that even work offline.

If you don’t care about Apple Intelligence, you can turn it off by going to System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri. However, even after turning it off, the local files may stay on the internal disk, continuing to hog the space.

You can check how much space Apple Intelligence is using by going to System Settings > General > Storage, then clicking the info icon ⓘ next to macOS.

At the time of writing this guide, it showed that Apple Intelligence took 14.03 GB of space on my Mac. After following the method below, this number disappeared completely, as shown in the screenshot below.

But then, after a minute, it changed to 55 MB, and then a few hundred MBs.

And eventually it went past 14 GB. This happened even though I had not enabled Apple Intelligence, had not used Siri, and had not even used this Mac mini much, aside from booting it a couple of times to take some Apple TV screenshots.

I followed the same process a second time, and sure, the method explained below freed up space taken by Apple Intelligence. But soon after, my Mac downloaded the Apple Intelligence files over Wi-Fi, even though I had Apple Intelligence disabled.

So, I would say that while the method I’m going to show you works to free up the space, it may not be a permanent solution. Or, the Apple Intelligence numbers shown in macOS storage settings are just incorrect.

Therefore, before you begin, I’d ask you to turn off Apple Intelligence in System Settings or set different Siri and system languages, which will block Apple Intelligence, as shown in the screenshot below.

Then go to System Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy (enable it) > Intelligence & Siri or just Siri on macOS 27 and turn off all switches for all AI tools like Image Creation, Writing Tools/Writing Assistance, and Extensions.

After that, restart your Mac a couple of times and macOS should clear the local Apple Intelligence files (just as it clears unneeded cache and system files). Plus, if you’re low on storage, check out over 30 tips to make space on your Mac.

However, if the above tips don’t free up the storage on your Mac consumed by Apple Intelligence, follow the steps below. But before you do that, restart your Mac, then return to System Settings > General > Storage, click the info icon ⓘ next to macOS, and take a screenshot or photo to document how much space Apple Intelligence is gulping.

Remove Apple Intelligence files from Mac

1) Shut down your Mac and wait for a minute.

2) Enter recovery mode by pressing and holding the power button on your MacBook or Mac desktop until you see ‘Loading Startup Options‘ on the screen.

3) Click Options, and then Continue.

4) Once you’re past the Apple icon and the progress bar, select your Mac’s volume and click Next.

5) Now select a user, click Next, enter the password for that user account, and click Continue.

6) You should now see the usual recovery mode screen. Select Disk Utility from here and click Continue.

7) Expand your Mac’s volume, select the Data partition, and click Mount. Enter the user account password and then click Unlock.

8) Now, click Disk Utility in the top menu bar and choose Quit Disk Utility.

9) Click Utilities in the top menu bar and select Terminal.

10) Carefully type the following command and press the return / enter key.

rm -rf /Volumes/Data/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_GenerativeModels

11) Now, enter the following command and press the return / enter key to get rid of files responsible for image tools.

rm -rf /Volumes/Data/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

12) Click the Apple icon  and select Restart.

13) Once the system boots up, turn off Wi-Fi or unplug the Ethernet. Then, quickly go to System Settings > General > Storage and click the info icon ⓘ next to macOS. You’ll notice that Apple Intelligence no longer takes up space.

However, once you reconnect to Wi-Fi, it may download the Apple Intelligence files again, even if you have already turned off Apple Intelligence and its various tools (as mentioned above).

I really hope Apple adds an easy button to delete all local Apple Intelligence files! But until then, the above method is all we have.

Factory reset your Mac and start over

If you have backed up your data to an external drive with Time Machine or manually copied all important files to another external drive or to cloud storage, you can consider erasing your Mac and starting fresh. Our full step-by-step tutorial guides you through the entire process without facing errors.

After the factory restore, set up your Mac and do not enable Apple Intelligence on the initial setup screens (screenshot below) or later in System Settings. This should ensure your Mac doesn’t download 10+ GB of Apple Intelligence files locally to your internal drive, even if you have no use for it.

Also, check out: How to get the new Siri AI on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

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