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Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back

515 points · 323 comments · privacyisntdead

  1. ryandrake · · focus · HN ↗
    Reminds me of all the de-crufting you've always needed to do when you install Windows. Looks like we've gotten to the point on macOS too, where you need to run third party scripts on a new OS installation to gain back control of your system resources and remove unwanted crapware.
    1. 2muchcoffeeman · · focus · HN ↗
      On windows you got garbage like trial versions of Blah software.

      This is a fully functioning feature that people don’t like for what ever reason.

      1. 2III7 · · focus · HN ↗
        Fully functional feature consuming multiple gigabytes of storage and has questionable functional value. Maybe people don't want bloated AI crap on their desktops?
        1. Stitch4223 · · focus · HN ↗
          “Some people” arguments always hold true.

          Old classmates back in the day used to hate the 128 × 128 px icons macOS shipped. A waste of space for eye candy.

          12 GB is at most 4.68% of your Mac. Improving on Apple Intelligence is something of value, as is consumerizing local-first AI.

          We’re not talking adware here.

          1. isityettime · · focus · HN ↗
            5% is huge. And the way app bundles work on macOS, tons and tons of disk space gets burned up for each application relative to on an OS like Linux distros, so each GB doesn't go as far in the first place.

            It's also not the full extent of disk usage by built-in apps which aren't removable by normal means on macOS. An empty macOS installation is like 35 GB. NixOS is not known for being particularly space efficient, but 30-40 GB is how much space I use on it for the OS and all applications, including a ton of developer tools, on my graphical systems. For the base OS with a full fat desktop environment, most Linux distros have you looking at less than 10 GB. So this comes as a massive increase on an OS that already burns a ton of disk space before you even get to touch it.

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