How to fix Apple Intelligence not working or not showing up on macOS 26 and 27

You updated your Mac and went looking for Apple Intelligence. Instead, System Settings had no Apple Intelligence option, or its switch wouldn’t turn on. Maybe the model download stalled at 0% or 100%, or Writing Tools vanished after the update. Each of these problems has its own cause, and most take a few minutes to fix.

We checked every step in September 2026 on a 13‑inch MacBook Pro with an M1 chip and 8 GB of memory. It ran macOS Golden Gate. macOS 27 renamed the main settings pane and added a beta of the new Siri. So each step gives the path for both macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27.

Why Apple Intelligence isn’t working: find your symptom

Match what you see to its likely cause, then go to the step that fixes it. Check the first two rows before anything else. They take a minute, and no other fix can work around them.

Before you change any settings, run down the requirements. Apple Intelligence on a Mac needs all of these at once:

• Apple silicon: an M1 chip or later, or the A18 Pro in MacBook Neo.
• Matching languages: your Mac and Siri set to the same supported language.
• Free space: at least 20 GB. The models took 18.53 GB on our test Mac.
• A supported region: everywhere except China mainland.
• Wi‑Fi and power for the download: macOS postpones it on a metered connection, such as an iPhone hotspot.
• The internal startup disk, with SIP on: macOS blocks Apple Intelligence on a Mac started from an external drive. It also warns that Apple Intelligence may stop working if System Integrity Protection is off (but it’s on unless you deliberately turn it off).

Siri AI on macOS 27 adds two conditions: English as the Mac and Siri language for now, and an Apple Account in an eligible region.

What Apple Intelligence includes on macOS 26 and 27, and what hasn’t shipped

On macOS Tahoe 26, Apple Intelligence is a set of features built into the apps you already use. With it turned on, you get:

• Writing Tools: proofread, rewrite, and summarize text, or turn it into a list or a table.
• Genmoji and Image Playground: custom emoji and images made from a short description.
• Clean Up in Photos: removes distracting objects from a photo.
• Summaries: short versions of notifications, emails, and web pages.
• Live Translation: translated conversations in Messages, FaceTime, and Phone.
• ChatGPT extension: an optional link that lets Siri and Writing Tools pass requests to ChatGPT.

Most of this runs on the Mac itself. Heavier requests go to Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s own servers for AI tasks. That’s why some features need an internet connection, even with Apple Intelligence on.

On macOS 27, features that run on Apple’s servers also have daily limits. Apple names Siri AI, intelligent photo editing tools, and Image Playground among them, and says the limits vary with demand. It also plans to sell expanded access later. A feature that stops answering after heavy use has most likely reached its limit for the day.

The new Siri: missing on Tahoe 26, in beta on macOS 27

The feature most people go looking for is the more personal Siri that Apple announced in 2024. It never reached Tahoe 26. Until macOS 27 shipped, Apple’s requirements page listed more personal Siri features as still in development. No setting or fix adds them to Tahoe.

macOS 27 Golden Gate, released on September 14, 2026, brings them as Siri AI (Beta). It runs on MacBook Neo and on every Mac with M1 or later, in English first. Apple says French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish follow in October. Access opens in stages, so your Mac is in one of three states:

• macOS Tahoe 26: the classic Siri only.
• macOS 27, no access yet: System Settings → Siri shows a Try Siri AI (Beta) button.
• macOS 27, access granted: a Siri AI Is Ready item appears at the top of System Settings, with an Open Siri button.

Clicking Try Siri AI (Beta) opens a Siri with Apple Intelligence sheet with Join Waitlist and Set Up Later. The sheet warns that Apple may use your account and device information, “including device serial number,” to check eligibility. Apple’s Siri AI page says wait times vary. When your turn comes, Siri AI downloads by itself.

When the wait ends, a new item at the top of the System Settings sidebar leads to an Open Siri button.

Open Siri launches a separate Siri app, with your past conversations in a sidebar. On our test Mac, we asked Siri AI how it could help. It answered with a generic list: timers, messages, weather, sports scores, music, and jokes. That first test showed none of the deeper personal context from Apple’s presentations.

Apple keeps its most powerful on‑device model for newer hardware. Expressive voices and more advanced dictation need a Mac with M3 or later and at least 12 GB of unified memory. Siri AI itself runs on any Mac that supports Apple Intelligence.

Note:

Three situations look like faults and work as designed. Tahoe 26 has no personal Siri, and macOS 27 rolls it out through a waitlist. The 2024 waitlist for Apple Intelligence itself is gone. And in the EU, most Apple Intelligence features have worked on eligible Macs since macOS Sequoia 15.1.

Apple also moved the settings. The table shows where to find them:

macOS version	Where Apple Intelligence settings live
macOS 27 Golden Gate	System Settings → Siri
macOS Tahoe 26	System Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri
macOS Tahoe 26 on a Mac without Apple Intelligence support	System Settings → Siri

Many older guides still send readers to Siri & Spotlight, a pane that neither Tahoe nor macOS 27 has.

Also Read:Mastering Apple Intelligence in macOS Tahoe

Step 1. Check that your Mac has Apple silicon

Apple Intelligence runs only on Macs with Apple silicon. Apple’s list of supported Macs starts with MacBook Neo (A18 Pro). It covers every MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini with M1 or later. Mac Studio qualifies from M1 Max, and Mac Pro with M2 Ultra. Intel Macs are excluded, whatever version of macOS they run.

To check your chip:

1. Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac.
2. Read the Chip line. “Apple M1” or a later M chip, or “Apple A18 Pro,” means your Mac qualifies.
3. If you see a Processor line with an Intel chip instead, your Mac can’t run Apple Intelligence.

sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string

On Tahoe 26, the System Settings sidebar gives you a second clue. A Mac that can run Apple Intelligence shows Apple Intelligence & Siri, and a Mac that can’t shows only Siri. macOS 27 names the pane Siri on every Mac, so the chip is the check that works on both.

The table sums up what each kind of Mac gets:

Step 2. Set your Mac and Siri to the same supported language

Apple Intelligence needs two settings to agree: the language of your Mac and the language of Siri. Both must be a language Apple supports. When they differ, Apple Intelligence switches off without an error message.

We set Siri to English (United Kingdom) on a macOS 27 Mac that uses US English. The Try Siri AI (Beta) button disappeared from the Siri settings, and the ChatGPT row turned grey with the note “Extensions require enabling Apple Intelligence first.”

Since macOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence supports 16 languages. Apple’s list covers English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Japanese, and Korean. macOS 27 keeps the same list, while Siri AI starts in English only.

A mismatch often comes from an iPhone. A MacBook Air owner on macOS 26.1 found Siri set to English (UK), carried over from their iPhone. The Mac itself used US English. Matching the two brought the missing Apple Intelligence settings back.

To check your Mac’s language:

1. Open System Settings → General → Language & Region.
2. Look at Preferred Languages. The language at the top, marked Primary, is your Mac’s language.
3. To change it, click the Add (+) button and pick a supported language. Confirm that you want to use it as your primary language, then restart when macOS asks.

To check Siri’s language:

1. Open System Settings → Siri. On Tahoe 26, open System Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri.
2. Click Language and choose the same language your Mac uses.

Give the change a few minutes. Apple warns that Apple Intelligence can stay unavailable until the new Siri language finishes downloading.

If your language isn’t on the list, Apple Intelligence stays off until you switch both settings to one that is.

Region matters in one place: China mainland. Apple says Apple Intelligence doesn’t currently work on Macs bought there. It also stays off on a Mac bought elsewhere while you’re in China mainland with an Apple Account from there. In the EU, most Apple Intelligence features have worked on Macs since macOS Sequoia 15.1. The June 2026 delay of Siri AI under the Digital Markets Act covers iPhone and iPad. Apple confirmed that EU users get Siri AI on macOS 27, with the Mac and Siri set to English.

Step 3. Free up space so the models can download

How much space Apple Intelligence takes on a Mac

Until macOS 27 shipped, Apple asked for 7 GB of free storage. For macOS 27, Apple’s requirements page lists up to 8 GB. Macs with M3 or later and at least 12 GB of unified memory need up to 14 GB.

Real Macs use more. On Tahoe 26.2, Howard Oakley of The Eclectic Light Company counted 28 extra cryptexes, sealed disk images that macOS loads for AI. He estimates that leaving AI off saves about 9 GB. On macOS 27, MacRumors saw 20.67 GB on an M4 Pro Mac mini. Our test M1 Mac reported 18.53 GB, more than twice Apple’s figure for that model.

To see the figure on your Mac:

1. Open System Settings → General → Storage.
2. Click the info (i) button next to macOS.
3. Read the Apple Intelligence line.

Older guides open this view from About This Mac, a route that ended with macOS Monterey. On Tahoe and macOS 27, open it from System Settings.

Free up at least 20 GB before you turn Apple Intelligence on. That covers the models, later model updates, and the working room macOS needs for itself.

The purgeable‑space trap

macOS counts purgeable space as available. Purgeable space holds data macOS can remove when it needs room, such as caches, local Time Machine snapshots, and copies of iCloud files. macOS frees it on its own schedule, though. A model download that needs the room right now can stall while Storage settings still show plenty of free space.

On macOS 27, Storage settings don’t list purgeable space as a separate line. Terminal shows the space you can use right now: type

df -h /

Copy

and press Return. The Avail column leaves purgeable space out. On our test Mac, it read 38Gi.

If the Avail figure is far below what Storage settings show, release the purgeable space before you retry the download. MacCleaner Pro lists it as its own item in the Clean Up section. Select Purgeable space and click Review to Clean Up, and the app asks macOS to release that space right away. In our test, it found 14 GB of purgeable space, next to 12.7 GB of caches in the same list.

Also Read:Two ways to delete purgeable space on Mac

Step 4. Turn on Apple Intelligence and let the models download

On macOS Tahoe 26:

1. Open System Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri.
2. Turn on the Apple Intelligence switch, or click Turn on Apple Intelligence.

On macOS 27, Apple Intelligence becomes available automatically after the update on an eligible Mac. The Siri settings have no switch for it. The only off button at the bottom of the pane is Turn Off Siri, which switches off Siri itself.

The download starts right away. Apple says the time it takes varies, and recommends keeping the Mac on Wi‑Fi and power until it ends. On Tahoe, the settings show “Downloading support for Apple Intelligence” while it runs. You can check that the models are ready: select text in TextEdit, Control‑click it, and look for Writing Tools in the menu.

Step 5. Fix missing features one by one

ChatGPT extension greyed out

On a MacBook Pro with macOS 26.1, the ChatGPT option went grey, and others in that thread saw it flip between grey and working. Turning Apple Intelligence off and on brought it back, but only for a while.

The extension lives in the same settings pane. On macOS 27, open System Settings → Siri, click ChatGPT, and click Set Up. With Siri AI on, the page has a Use Extension switch instead. On Tahoe 26, the ChatGPT row sits under Extensions in Apple Intelligence & Siri.

If the switch is dimmed or flips back on its own:

• Turn Apple Intelligence on first. On macOS 27, a grey row with “Extensions require enabling Apple Intelligence first” means Apple Intelligence is off. In our test, a Siri language that didn’t match the Mac’s was enough to cause it.
• Check Screen Time. A blocked extension shows “Access to ChatGPT integration features has been restricted on this Mac.” Allow Extensions in the same Screen Time section as Writing Tools above (Intelligence Extensions on Tahoe).
• Check your region. Apple offers the ChatGPT extension only where the ChatGPT app and service are available.

Spotlight misses results after the update

After a major update, Spotlight rebuilds its index of your disk. Apple’s notes for macOS 26.6 say that the update optimized the Spotlight index to prepare for macOS 27. That indexing can keep the disk and processor busy for hours after an update, and it’s easy to blame on Apple Intelligence.

The index matters more on macOS 27. Apple’s Siri troubleshooting guide for macOS 27 explains that Siri answers from the Spotlight index. Until indexing finishes, Siri AI may not find your files and messages.

If searches still miss files a day later, rebuild the index. Open Terminal, type

sudo mdutil -E /

Copy

, press Return, and enter your administrator password. Terminal shows no characters while you type it. Indexing then starts over and takes from a few minutes to an hour, depending on how much data your disk holds.

Also Read:How to reindex Spotlight on Mac

Known bugs on macOS 26 and 27, and last‑resort fixes

Some problems trace back to bugs that users keep reporting on Apple Support Communities and the MacRumors forums. Apple’s release notes list no fixes for them, so the answer is often the next update. The table lists the ones you’re most likely to meet:

If none of the steps work, reinstall macOS from Recovery. Apple says a reinstall keeps your apps and personal data, but back up with Time Machine first anyway. On an Apple silicon Mac:

1. Shut down the Mac.
2. Press and hold the power button. Release it when you see Loading startup options.
3. Click Options, then Continue. If asked, select your startup disk and an administrator account.
4. Choose the option to reinstall macOS, click Continue, and follow the prompts. Keep the Mac awake with the lid open until it finishes.

You can also report the problem to Apple. Open Feedback Assistant from Spotlight, describe what you see, and attach the report it gathers.

How to turn off Apple Intelligence and get the space back

Turning Apple Intelligence off is a fair choice on a Mac with a small disk, or if you don’t use the features. How much you can turn off depends on the macOS version.

On Tahoe 26, open System Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri and turn off the Apple Intelligence switch. Writing Tools and the other features stop working, and Siri loses the abilities Apple Intelligence adds. Apple’s requirements page for Tahoe said the on‑device models are removed when you do this. Users report a messier picture. On the MacRumors forums, Tahoe 26.5.1 owners found 5 to 6 GB of AI data in Storage settings. They had never turned Apple Intelligence on.

On macOS 27, Apple Intelligence stays. MacRumors reports that macOS 27 downloads the models automatically, with no option to prevent it. Apple’s guide turns features off one at a time instead:

• Siri AI: click Turn Off Siri at the bottom of System Settings → Siri, then confirm. To keep the classic assistant, click Turn On Siri and choose Use Siri Classic.
• Summaries: turn off Summarize Notifications in System Settings → Notifications, and the summary options in the Mail and Messages settings.
• Writing and images: block Writing Assistance and Image Creation in the Screen Time section from Step 5.

Check the result in System Settings → General → Storage: click the info (i) button next to macOS and read the Apple Intelligence line.

/System/Library/AssetsV2

The models are off‑limits to cleanup apps too, our MacCleaner Pro included. What these apps can clear is the junk around the models: caches, logs, old installers, and downloads you no longer need.

The bottom line

Most Apple Intelligence problems on a Mac come down to four checks: the chip, the two language settings, free space, and a download that needs Wi‑Fi, power, and time. Run them in that order, and within minutes you’ll know whether your Mac can run Apple Intelligence and what’s stopping it.

The rest is waiting. Tahoe 26 doesn’t have the personal Siri, and on macOS 27, it arrives through a waitlist. Apple fixes bugs in point updates, so keep your Mac current. On Tahoe, you can turn Apple Intelligence off to keep the disk space. On macOS 27, it comes with the system, so plan for about 20 GB of AI models.