'Sneaky' way to turn off Apple Intelligence in iOS27 and free up 20GB of storage
Not everyone is going to take advantage of all the new Apple Intelligence features that have arrived with iOS 27, but if you're one of those people you could frustrated to discover that you're potentially wasting up to 20GB of storage data on your iPhone.
While it's true that iPhone storage has increased steadily over the years – with new models now offering 256GB as a baseline – there is still plenty of reasons why you might want to fill that space up, from your photos and videos to your gaming favorites which certainly aren't small these days.
That's why it's so important to squeeze as much as you can out of your iPhone by removing everything that you don't use, and Apple Intelligence is one of the biggest bloating factors for those who don't even touch it.
There does appear to be a 'sneaky' way to turn off Apple Intelligence features on your iPhone, but it might not necessarily be the solution that some are looking for, as it still leaves you burdened with data that you simply can't shift.
Can you delete Apple Intelligence on your iPhone?
While there was seemingly a way to disable the new Apple Intelligence features in the Public Beta for iOS 27, Apple appears to have removed that for the full release, leaving people with only a few fragmented options when it comes to AI.
Advert
You can see how much storage Apple Intelligence is taking up on your device, however, by following these steps:
- Open the Settings app and head into General
- Select iPhone Storage near the top
- Scroll down to the bottom until you see the iOS option, and select it
From here you should be able to see a breakdown of the space required to run iOS 27, with Apple Intelligence one of the two options. For me, on an iPhone 17, it 'only' takes up 13.81GB, but it can be as much as 20GB on Pro devices according to Lifehacker.
There do appear to be some options for 'turning off' AI features that have arrived in the new update – including the revamped Siri – it doesn't appear as this outright deletes the data from your device with the storage still allocated to Apple Intelligence after a restart.
This is likely so that you can turn it on again at any point without issues arising, but it does remain frustrating for people who are confident they'll never use the features and want their storage space back.
Can you turn off Apple Intelligence features?
Regardless of whether you get the storage space back, however, there are many people out there who might simply want to rid themselves of the AI features altogether — and there are some options you can take.
By far the best method is to simply disable Siri, which is surprisingly simple given how integral Apple has made it out to be for the new and evolved iPhone experience, so make sure to try it out:
- Head into the Settings app and scroll down until you see the Siri option
- This is found underneath Search and above StandBy
- Scroll down on that page to find the Turn Off Siri directive
Additionally, you can disable a number of Apple Intelligence feature – including Image Creation, Writing Tools, and Intelligence Extensions – though the Screen Time settings, as per Proton, so follow the steps below to do so:
- Open the Settings app and navigate to the Screen Time section
- Scroll down to the Restrictions area and select Content & Privacy Restrictions
- Toggle Content & Privacy restrictions on, and then head into Intelligence & Siri below
- Select Don't Allow on the three aforementioned features
As indicated, these unfortunately don't appear to delete the data from your device, but it can mean that you don't have access to AI features that you might not necessarily agree with going forward.