The marquee features in Apple’s latest operating systems for iPhone, iPad, and Mac are the suite of AI features called Apple Intelligence. These features affect various parts of the operating system, from email summaries to notifications, from a group of writing tools to Siri enhancements that allow you to query ChatGPT.
But you may not want to use these features, or you may not need them. If so, you can disable them, and not have to deal with the vagaries of AI. You can also save space on your device. Here’s how.
Apple Intelligence is an umbrella term for a disparate collection of AI-powered tools. They include Writing Tools, which allow you to proofread or rewrite texts; a Clean Up tool in Apple’s Photos app; Image Playground, which creates generative AI images and “Genmoji,” or generative AI emoji; Visual Intelligence, available on the iPhone 16 only, which looks up images to give you information about them; and summaries in email previews and notifications.
See Apple Intelligence – The Complete Guide for more about these features.
Apple Intelligence runs on the following devices:
Apple Intelligence is available for a limited number of languages and regions around the world, and this availability is increasing with each round of operating system updates. A footnote at the bottom of this page on the Apple website specifies which languages and regions are currently supported.
These features started rolling out in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. The .2 releases of each of these operating systems added more features, and subsequent updates to these operating systems will continue to add new features.
Turning off Apple Intelligence is simple. Go to Settings (iPhone or iPad) or System Settings (Mac), tap or click Apple Intelligence & Siri, and toggle off Apple Intelligence.
This will turn off all Apple Intelligence features, and should free up space used by these features. On macOS, this is about 5 GB; on iPhone or iPad, this is about 3 GB.
You can turn off some individual Apple Intelligence features if there are some you want to use. Here’s how to disable some of the features.
There’s no way to disable Writing Tools, but they only appear if you choose them by selecting them in a contextual menu or from the Edit menu on Mac.
Image Playground is a standalone app, and you can delete this app from your device. If you do, you will not be able to create generative AI images or Genmoji.
You can turn off email summaries in the Mail app on macOS. Go to Mail > Settings > View, then deselect Summarize Message Previews.
On iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Apps > Mail and toggle off Summarize Message Previews.
To turn off notification summaries on Mac, go to System Settings > Notifications, click Summarize Notifications, then toggle off the setting at the top of the window. If you want to keep notification summaries on for some apps, you can individually toggle this setting for apps in the list below.
On iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications, then, as on the Mac, toggle off Summarize Notifications. Or manually turn off notification summaries for any apps in the list below.
ChatGPT is now available directly within Siri, when Siri itself cannot provide an answer to your queries. You are asked if you want to send the query to ChatGPT, which then responds. You can turn off ChatGPT integration in System Settings (Mac) or Settings (iPhone or iPad): go to Apple Intelligence & Siri, tap or click ChatGPT (under Extensions), and toggle off Use ChatGPT.
Apple has indicated that it plans to partner with other third-party LLMs (large language models) as alternatives to ChatGPT. If and when Apple adds other LLMs, you’ll likely be available to disable them in the same way.
As Apple adds more features to Apple Intelligence, you will be able to globally turn this feature set on or off, or gradually choose which features you want to use in various settings across the operating system.
You can also subscribe to our e-mail newsletter and keep an eye here on The Mac Security Blog for the latest Apple security and privacy news. And don’t forget to follow Intego on your favorite social media channels: 
