- The problem. macOS 27 downloads Apple Intelligence models whether you use the features or not. On our M1 Max the Storage pane showed 13.98 GB, while Apple’s figure for this Mac is up to 8 GB.
- What we found. Not even an administrator password opens the model folders, but macOS keeps a record of each model any user can read. Two coding models top the list at 2.48 and 2.21 GB.
- What you can do. A Terminal command in the post lists every model with its size and date, with no password. Mint doesn’t delete these files.
If your free space dropped after you updated to macOS 27, some of it is probably Apple Intelligence. macOS 27 downloads the models whether you use the features or not, and the setting that turned them off is gone, MacRumors reported on September 23. The Storage pane shows your own number in about ten seconds. On our M1 Max it was 13.98 GB, while Apple's figure for this Mac is up to 8 GB.
The folders that hold the models wouldn't open even with an administrator password. macOS does keep a record of each model that any user can read, though, and from those records you can list every model on your Mac with its size and the date its record was written.
Where to see your number
- Open System Settings > General > Storage and wait for the bar at the top to finish.
- Click the ⓘ button next to macOS.
- Find the line for Apple Intelligence.
It's counted under macOS, not System Data. If System Data is what grew, look at Spotlight's index first.
Our Mac, an M1 Max with 32 GB of memory on macOS 27.0.1 (26A434), showed 13.98 GB on October 5. Apple's support page says up to 14 GB for Macs with M3 or later and at least 12 GB of unified memory, and up to 8 GB for every other Mac that runs Apple Intelligence. All M1 and M2 Macs are in the second group, so this one came in 5.98 GB over, 75% above Apple's number. The other Macs in MacRumors' report were over Apple's figures too, with about 14 GB on Ars Technica's M1 MacBook Air, 20.67 GB on an M4 Pro Mac mini and 30.16 GB on one Reddit user's Mac.
If you check yours, we'd like to know the number and your Mac's chip. Send it to dev@dzgapp.com, or leave it under our video of this measurement.
Not even root can read the folders
The models sit in six folders under /System/Library/AssetsV2, with names that start with com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM or com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_IF_Planner. For all six, du answers "Operation not permitted", and sudo du with the administrator password gave the same answer. The folders also carry the restricted flag of System Integrity Protection (SIP), and SIP was on here. Siri's language-understanding folder is right beside them, with the same owner, permissions and flags, and du reads it fine: 2.66 GB. We don't know what makes the difference.
macOS keeps a record of each model
Next to the model folders, persisted/AutoAssetDescriptors holds a small file for every asset macOS downloads by itself, 418 of them on this Mac. Any user can read them. Our Terminal had no Full Disk Access, and we typed no password. Each record names a model and its version, says whether it's on disk, and gives a size in a field called downloadedFilesystemBytes. Of the 418, 263 belong to the six folders.
What we got wrong first
Our first total was 113.88 GB, all 263 records added together. That much can't be in those folders on this disk. On October 4, everything Mint's disk map couldn't read on this Mac came to about 35 GB, and the six folders are part of it.
Sorting the records by the day each was last written showed where the extra came from. 109 of them were written on April 6, 2026, and they add up to 100.00 GB. Most of that is 24 models with names like instruct_server_v1.text_summarizer, the largest 6.41 GB. All 109 still say they're on disk, and we don't know why.
Leave out the April batch and the other 154 records add up to 13.88 GB. The Storage pane says 13.98, a difference of 0.10 GB. Two numbers from two different places agreeing within 0.7% is why we think the pane counts these 154 and skips the April batch. We can't confirm it from inside the folders.
A record isn't a measurement of the disk, either. For Siri's language-understanding folder, the one du can read, the records add up to 1.45 GB while the folder holds 2.66 GB. Take the total from the Storage pane, and use the records to see what's in it.
What's in the 13.88 GB
The two biggest records are coding models, at 2.48 and 2.21 GB, ahead of a 1.56 GB language model:
written size record
2026-09-29 2.48 GB fm.code.generate_small_v2, a coding model
2025-09-20 2.21 GB fm.code.generate_small_v1, a coding model
2026-09-29 1.56 GB fm.language.instruct_3b, a language model
2026-09-29 0.94 GB its image encoder
2026-09-29 1.22 GB fm.language.instruct_300m, 2 records
2026-09-29 3.92 GB 52 smaller files, 5 to 134 MB each
various 1.55 GB 96 other records
13.88 GB 154 records
The 3b in the language model's name matches Apple's on-device model, which Apple Machine Learning Research describes as a "3-billion-parameter dense model". The 52 smaller files are named after features and checks, such as summarization, proofreading_review, mail_reply and safety.
The coding models are the surprise. Version 2 came with macOS 27.0.1, which finished installing here on the morning of September 29. The record for version 1 was last written on September 20, 2025, and still says the model is on disk. Without it the records come to 11.67 GB, 2.31 GB short of the Storage pane, so the pane looks like it counts both. We can't open the folder to see the files themselves. This Mac has Xcode with predictive code completion turned on, and we think the coding models are there for it, but we haven't checked a Mac without Xcode.
List the models on your Mac
Paste this into Terminal as one block. It reads the same records and prints each one over 100 MB from the six folders, largest first, with a date, the size and the model's name, and it marks records more than a year old. Nothing is changed and no password is needed; here it took about five seconds.
(cd /System/Library/AssetsV2/persisted/AutoAssetDescriptors &&
now=$(date +%s) &&
ls | grep -E 'UAF\.(FM\.|IF\.Planner)' | while read -r f; do
b=$(plutil -extract SUCorePersistedStatePolicySecureCodedObjectsFields.assetDescriptor raw -o - "$f" |
base64 -D | plutil -p - | awk '/downloadedFilesystemBytes/ {print $3; exit}')
[ "${b:-0}" -gt 100000000 ] || continue
t=$(stat -f %m "$f")
old=""; [ $((now - t)) -gt 31536000 ] && old=" over a year old"
name=$(echo "$f" | sed -E 's/^.*_com\.apple\.//; s/_[0-9.]+_0\.state$//')
printf '%s %5d MB %s%s\n' "$(stat -f %Sm -t %Y-%m-%d "$f")" $((b / 1000000)) "$name" "$old"
done | sort -k2 -nr)
On this Mac it printed 58 lines. 28 of them were dated April 6, and one was marked as over a year old. The lines for the coding and language models were these:
2026-09-29 2479 MB fm.code.generate_small_v2.base
2025-09-20 2214 MB fm.code.generate_small_v1.base over a year old
2026-09-29 1556 MB fm.language.instruct_3b.base.generic
2026-09-29 941 MB fm.language.instruct_3b.image_encoder.generic
The date is when macOS last wrote the record, usually the day the model was downloaded. A list can also hold records for models that aren't on disk, like most of the April batch here, so the Storage pane's figure is the real total.
Getting the space back
On this Mac, Apple Intelligence costs 13.98 GB. The models are what its features run on, so the space comes back only when those features are turned off. Mint, the Mac app we make, measures space like this. We found this while picking what to build next.
What Mint does
Mint doesn't delete these files or list them for removal. Its disk map can't read the six folders either, so it can't tell you their size; the Storage pane can. Mint also uses the models. In Mint 1.0.83, Organize asks Apple's on-device model, when it's available, which folder a file belongs in if Mint's own rules can't decide. Without the model, those files are sorted by Mint's rules alone.
Questions
Will the old coding model go away on its own? We don't know. Its record hasn't changed since September 20, 2025, and the update to macOS 27 left it where it was.
Why is my number different? Apple sets a higher ceiling for Macs with M3 or later and at least 12 GB of memory. The coding models may also depend on having Xcode, which we haven't tested. The readings MacRumors reported run from about 14 GB to 30.16 GB.
Does the command change anything? No. It reads files every user can read and prints text, without sudo. If it prints nothing, your Mac has no records for these folders.