Published Mar 31, 2025, 3:00 PM EDT
Mahnoor Faisal is a tech journalist covering AI and productivity tools with bylines at XDA, SlashGear, MakeUseOf, Laptop Mag, and Android Police.
She's been writing professionally since she was sixteen, and has since penned hundreds of articles. This includes in-depth coverage of AI tools like NotebookLM to breaking news across the AI space. Her passion for technology started when she received her first iPod Touch (4th generation) on her 8th birthday, and she's been deep in the tech world ever since.
Currently pursuing a degree in computer science, Mahnoor brings both a journalist's eye and a technical foundation to her coverage of how AI is reshaping the way we work and learn.
Apple not only failed to deliver on the massive promises it made when announcing Apple Intelligence, but the little progress it has made so far has also been disappointing and, frankly, underwhelming. Ironically, that’s not even what bothers me the most.
Apple Intelligence Eats Up a Ton of Storage, Even Though I Hardly Use It
I never delete old photos from my phone (though maybe I should) and tend to download too many random apps—almost like I have unlimited storage. So, I'm always running out of space.
Unfortunately, Apple Intelligence just made this issue much worse. When it first debuted with iOS 18.1, you needed at least 4GB of free storage on your device to download it. Unlike what Apple had promised, the first wave of Apple Intelligence only included limited features like the Clean Up tool and the controversial Notification Summaries.
Once iOS 18.2 rolled out, ChatGPT integration with Siri was added, along with Image Playground and Genmoji. These new features came at a price, though. The minimum storage requirement nearly doubled from 4GB to 7GB.
You can check how much storage it's taking up by going to Settings > General > iPhone Storage (iPad Storage on iPads and Storage on Macs). Scroll all the way down, tap iOS/iPadOS/macOS, and the figure next to Apple Intelligence will show how much storage it’s taking up.
At the moment, Apple Intelligence is using 5.52GB on my iPhone, 3.12GB on my iPad, and 4.78GB on my Mac. The strangest part? The storage it consumes isn’t consistent and varies wildly from device to device.
For example, a Reddit user mentioned that Apple Intelligence is taking up 9.18GB on their iPhone. Another person under the same post, who recently got Apple’s new budget-friendly iPhone 16e with 128GB of storage, noticed that Apple Intelligence is claiming 8GB. If you do the math, that means Apple Intelligence is using 6.25% of their phone's total storage.
And that’s not all. On the same iOS/iPadOS/macOS page, you’ll also notice another figure showing how much storage the system itself is consuming. My iPhone’s iOS storage is currently 11.93GB. Assuming the iPhone 16e uses a similar amount, that would bring the combined total to 19.93GB, meaning nearly 15.6% of their storage would already be gone!
Now, I wouldn’t have minded Apple Intelligence eating up so much storage if it were actually useful. While I enjoy creating my own emojis (though Genmoji kind of sucks) and prefer the glowing, revamped Siri, there’s no world where the current Apple Intelligence features are worth sacrificing so much storage. I'd much rather download a couple more useless apps or keep my memories safe without paying for more iCloud storage.
There’s No Quick Way to Reclaim Your Storage
Unfortunately, if you’ve already enabled Apple Intelligence on your Apple device, turning it off in hopes of getting your storage back might do little good. I’ve disabled it before, and even then, it still consumed the exact same amount of storage. And plenty of Reddit comments mention that they've had storage space taken up by the features despite having Apple Intelligence disabled from day one.
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Apple’s Support page mentions that the on-device models "may" be removed if you disable Apple Intelligence. So, it seems like it’s entirely up to Apple to decide whether it wants to give you back that precious storage.
Previously, you could fix this issue by factory resetting your Apple device (though that was already far from ideal), but even that might not work anymore. That’s because Apple Intelligence is enabled by default in iOS 18.3 and later versions, meaning storage will be taken up as soon as it’s enabled.
At the end of the day, all I can say is... Apple is going to be Apple. I just wish the insane amount of storage it takes up was at least worth it! There's only one Apple Intelligence feature I actually use, and even that doesn’t justify the storage hit. While turning it off might not free up your storage, you could noticeably improve your iPhone's battery life by disabling Apple Intelligence.