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Still no way to remove 9.27 GB of Disabled Apple Intelligence?

A

Altis

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Sep 10, 2013
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Does that not seem like a bit much?

9.27 GB for a completely disabled feature is about half the size of macOS itself. It was 5 GB before -- how much bigger can we expect it to get, for something I have no intention to use?

Is there still no way to remove these files and have them stay gone? I followed some steps to remove them in the terminal from restore mode, only to watch them download right back again.

For those of us who Apple happily sold 256 GB models, it starts to add up. I suspect I'll have to just move the whole computer to an external drive.
 
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Altis said:
Does that not seem like a bit much?

9.27 GB for a completely disabled feature is about half the size of macOS itself. It was 5 GB before -- how much bigger can we expect it to get, for something I have no intention to use?

Is there still no way to remove these files and have them stay gone? I followed some steps to remove them in the terminal from restore mode, only to watch them download right back again.

For those of us who Apple happily sold 256 GB models, it starts to add up. I suspect I'll have to just move the whole computer to an external drive.
Click to expand...
Strange: those Gb's additional sounds and effects of Garage Band can easily be removed.
I would expect all other optional data also removable.
;JOOP!
 
Is there a link to a guide to removing the Apple Intelligence files?
Or at least some direction as to where they are stored?
 
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Altis said:
Does that not seem like a bit much?

9.27 GB for a completely disabled feature is about half the size of macOS itself. It was 5 GB before -- how much bigger can we expect it to get, for something I have no intention to use?

Is there still no way to remove these files and have them stay gone? I followed some steps to remove them in the terminal from restore mode, only to watch them download right back again.

For those of us who Apple happily sold 256 GB models, it starts to add up. I suspect I'll have to just move the whole computer to an external drive.
Click to expand...
just reinstall 15.1 or whatever
 
Any tinkering with system volume wil necessitate to disable protections related to SSV. Generally speaking it is not a good idea. There is a purpose in them being located on system volume - so anything related to Apple Intelligence cannot be altered by malicious intervention.

Yes Apple Intelligence is still in Beta and it looks like it has some nasty problems in it, but even I ended up keeping it enabled because disabling is messing up storage info (calculations in "Storage" will end up being wrong and amount of purgeable data is wrong as well)
 
nmt1900 said:
Any tinkering with system volume wil necessitate to disable protections related to SSV.
Click to expand...
They are not actually on the read-only system volume, they are on the Data volume and all can be safely deleted. macOS will create and download what it needs again.
 
bogdanw said:
They are not actually on the read-only system volume, they are on the Data volume and all can be safely deleted. macOS will create and download what it needs again.
Click to expand...
Beware that AI one day will be intertwined with several utilities:
from then on you just can not remove it at all.
;JOOP!
 
Sciuriware said:
Beware that AI one day will be intertwined with several utilities:
from then on you just can not remove it at all.
;JOOP!
Click to expand...
I doubt that will happen soon for two reasons:
- Apple Intelligence has been underwhelming so far
- Spotlight and Siri have been a part of macOS for a long time and still can be disabled
nmt1900 said:
/System/Library/AssetsV2 does seem to be on system volume...
Click to expand...
If it were, macOS would not be able to constantly write on it
 
I went to
/System/Library/AssetsV2

... and moved everything within it to the trash.

At first, the trash wouldn't completely empty... kept giving me error msgs.
A reboot seemed to fix that, then I could clear all the items in it.

BUT...
After a while, they start coming back.

However, as they do "come back", you can usually dump them into the trash again to clear them out.

I tried doing a "get info" on the "AssetsV2" folder, and then setting it to "read only", even for the System. But that doesn't work, stuff still comes back into it.

So...
I created an alias of the folder, and put it within easy reach.
Now I can open it and just do a "select all" on the items inside, and then send them to the trash. We'll see how this method goes...
 

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Fishrrman said:
I went to
/System/Library/AssetsV2

... and moved everything within it to the trash.

At first, the trash wouldn't completely empty... kept giving me error msgs.
A reboot seemed to fix that, then I could clear all the items in it.

BUT...
After a while, they start coming back.

However, as they do "come back", you can usually dump them into the trash again to clear them out.

I tried doing a "get info" on the "AssetsV2" folder, and then setting it to "read only", even for the System. But that doesn't work, stuff still comes back into it.

So...
I created an alias of the folder, and put it within easy reach.
Now I can open it and just do a "select all" on the items inside, and then send them to the trash. We'll see how this method goes...
Click to expand...
I don't think its a good approach. Easiest way is to downgrade to 15.1
 
I just give up. It's not worth playing wack a mole with this thing

But anything I can wack without it coming back?
 
StoneJack said:
I don't think its a good approach. Easiest way is to downgrade to 15.1
Click to expand...
This seems to be the only way, sadly, from what I'm hearing. I don't understand why this stuff is being thrust upon us from all the tech companies.

Fishrrman said:
Is there a link to a guide to removing the Apple Intelligence files?
Or at least some direction as to where they are stored?
Click to expand...
There are several if you search how to do it, in the AssetsV2 folder. It did clear the usage down to zero for Apple Intelligence but to my surprise, it started downloading it all over again within minutes.
 
nmt1900 said:
It is system volume and files have today's timestamps on it. I rest my case...
Click to expand...
To convince yourself, reboot into Recovery, list the contents of AssetsV2 ("ls /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/AssetsV2"), then unmount the Data volume (hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Data) and check AssetsV2 again.
AssetsV2.jpg

Not all folders inAssetsV2 are related to Apple Intelligence.
Because I prefer offline translations, I downloaded several languages and they are in com_apple_MobileAsset_SpeechTranslationAssets7 and com_apple_MobileAsset_LinguisticData
 
Fishrrman said:
So...
I created an alias of the folder, and put it within easy reach.
Now I can open it and just do a "select all" on the items inside, and then send them to the trash. We'll see how this method goes...
Click to expand...
Simply deleting the folders is not the solution, because macOS will download 9GB again.

My suggestion was to lock the folders where the files are downloaded.

I don’t have Apple Intelligence on my Mac, but based on @gilby101's post, Apple Intelligence is downloaded in /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General and /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

As you have SIP disabled, you can delete the contents of those folders and lock them from Terminal:

Code: 
sudo chflags schg /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General

Code: 
sudo chflags schg /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

For users that have SIP enabled, the folders can be locked from Terminal in Recovery:
- delete the contents:
Code: 
rm -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General/*

Code: 
rm -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual/*

- lock the folders
Code: 
chflags schg /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General

Code: 
chflags schg /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

To unlock them again:
- with SIP disabled
Code: 
sudo chflags noschg /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General

Code: 
sudo chflags noschg /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual

- with SIP enabled
Code: 
sudo chflags noschg /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General

Code: 
sudo chflags noschg /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual
 
bogdanw said:
To convince yourself, reboot into Recovery, list the contents of AssetsV2 ("ls /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/AssetsV2"), then unmount the Data volume (hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Data) and check AssetsV2 again.
View attachment 2501877
Click to expand...
This must be something more intricate than simple linking as symlink would be easy to discover and hardlink cannot (usually) span across volumes and cannot be used for directories.
 
bogdanw said:
I don’t have Apple Intelligence on my Mac, but based on @gilby101's post, Apple Intelligence is downloaded in /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General and /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual
Click to expand...
Hmm...

Back in January, I said:
"Likely that /System/Library/AssetV2 relates to Apple Intelligence (13.9GB on my AI enabled MBP). But, be careful, as my Intel Mac (AI not supported) has 12.9GB in that folder. So, if that is the right place, deleting stuff may have unexpected side effects.

The MBP has two large folders /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_General (4.8GB) and /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM_Visual (4.5GB) which are not present in the Intel Mac. So you might want to start by understanding their purpose."

That was at much the same time as the accepted answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...exclude-apple-intelligence-data-from-back-ups

But the world seems to have changed. My MBP (M3 with macOS 15.4) still has AI enabled (though hardly used!):

1) System Settings > Storager > macOS 21.24GB (next to bottom) > (click the I in a circle) Apple Intelligence 10.55GB. I think this is new. I also found this thread from March https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...nce-storage-space-info-in-macos-15-4.2453352/ Read the first post (sadly, the discussion doesn't lead anywhere concrete).

2) /System/Library/AssetsV2 is now 4.7GB with no sign of the two large folders "UAF_FM" folders. Oh!!

I have no idea where the AI data is now stored. Sorry about that. But I will continue to explore.
 
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