How to completely disable "Tips"?

[Elhem Enohpi]

I turned off "Allow Notifications" for "Tips", and used Little Snitch to block network connections by "tipsd". But I'd like to disable the whole thing from running at all. Any idea how?

I don't want a system that watches everything I do, and "uses on-device intelligence to determine which collections to send and which features to highlight for you" - and then randomly shows a pop-up notification while I'm in the middle of something else, to tell me stuff I already know! I guess for some people that might be helpful, but please give me a way to shut it down, thanks.

 

[bogdanw]

I don't have access to Monterey right now and Tips is not present in Big Sur.
If you are willing to test something, open Activity Monitor, search for tipsd and double click it.
From that windows try to find the following information: the user it runs under and the agent responsible for starting it.
If it's how I suspect (501 & com.apple.tipsd), a command like this should stop it:
launchctl bootout gui/501/com.apple.tipsd
and a command like this should disable it from starting again
launchctl disable gui/501/com.apple.tipsd

 

[Elhem Enohpi]

@bogdanw thanks! It looks like tipsd isn't running all the time, so I didn't find that information about how it gets launched.

I did find /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.tipsd.plist. It contains the following:

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>EnablePressuredExit</key>
    <true/>
    <key>EnableTransactions</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.apple.tipsd</string>
    <key>LaunchEvents</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.coreduetcontext.client_event_stream</key>
        <dict>
            <key>notification</key>
            <dict>
                <key>client-identifier</key>
                <string>com.apple.tipsd</string>
            </dict>
        </dict>
        <key>com.apple.xpc.activity</key>
        <dict>
            <key>com.apple.tipsd.analytics-maintenance</key>
            <dict>
                <key>AllowBattery</key>
                <false/>
                <key>GracePeriod</key>
                <integer>3600</integer>
                <key>Interval</key>
                <integer>86400</integer>
                <key>Priority</key>
                <string>Maintenance</string>
                <key>Repeating</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequireScreenSleep</key>
                <true/>
            </dict>
            <key>com.apple.tipsd.postInstall-utility</key>
            <dict>
                <key>AllowBattery</key>
                <true/>
                <key>PostInstall</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Priority</key>
                <string>Utility</string>
                <key>Repeating</key>
                <false/>
                <key>RequireNetworkConnectivity</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresBuddyComplete</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresClassC</key>
                <true/>
            </dict>
            <key>com.apple.tipsd.update-content</key>
            <dict>
                <key>AllowBattery</key>
                <false/>
                <key>GracePeriod</key>
                <integer>21600</integer>
                <key>Interval</key>
                <integer>86400</integer>
                <key>NetworkTransferDirection</key>
                <string>Download</string>
                <key>Priority</key>
                <string>Maintenance</string>
                <key>Repeating</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequireNetworkConnectivity</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresBuddyComplete</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresClassC</key>
                <true/>
            </dict>
            <key>com.apple.tipsd.welcome.followup</key>
            <dict>
                <key>AllowBattery</key>
                <false/>
                <key>GracePeriod</key>
                <integer>18000</integer>
                <key>Interval</key>
                <integer>97200</integer>
                <key>NetworkTransferDirection</key>
                <string>Download</string>
                <key>PostInstall</key>
                <true/>
                <key>Priority</key>
                <string>Maintenance</string>
                <key>Repeating</key>
                <false/>
                <key>RequireNetworkConnectivity</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresBuddyComplete</key>
                <true/>
                <key>RequiresClassC</key>
                <true/>
            </dict>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>MachServices</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.tipsd</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>POSIXSpawnType</key>
    <string>Adaptive</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/libexec/tipsd</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

My user ID is 501. Would that command work for this? I know a bit about launchctl, but not enough in this case...

 

[bogdanw]

It should work, if it is launched under your user (501). You can try launchctl disable gui/501/com.apple.tipsd and see if it launches again. The command to reenable it is launchctl enable gui/501/com.apple.tipsd The values are written into /private/var/db/com.apple.xpc.launchd/disabled.501.plist
If .plist files for com.apple.tipsd.analytics-maintenance, com.apple.tipsd.postInstall-utility, com.apple.tipsd.update-content, com.apple.tipsd.welcome.followup are also in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/, they may need to be disabled individually as well.

 

[Elhem Enohpi]

Thanks. Yes, it does run under my user id. And no, I don't see .plist files for the other things, only com.apple.tipsd. I did the command, and then force quit the process, and tipsd didn't start up again, at least not immediately. So, hopefully that does it. Is there a way to disable it for all users, or only per-user?

 

[bogdanw]

You can try with
sudo launchctl disable system/com.apple.tipsd