This carried and I can still do that. But not on System apps. So now any system app is twice without ability to easily 'diet' it:
file /System/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /System/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e] /System/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 /System/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit (for architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64e
It won't be marketing wonder when new macOS dropping Intel will be it's 25% smaller (I guess they'll take the extra size for on-device models are other feature you won't be able to remove :) )
Right off the bat, XProtect, MRT, Gatekeeper, amfid, system updates, telemetry, MDM...
----
semi-unrelated tip - on ios, most telemetry options can be disabled under
Settings -> privacy & security -> Analytics & Improvements
However, there is a whole separate telemetry setting:
Settings -> search -> help apple improve search
note that this doesn't show up if you search for it in settings. (try searching for "help apple" or "improve")
and of course the whole "learn from this app" and other siri settings that are all individual settings.
Nobody knows how to do anything because nobody lets them.
But your average 20 year old who only knows an iPhone would be out of his/her depth quickly.
Computers are no longer made for me.
This is really irritating, both that:
- I can't "accept the risk" and force disk encryption anyway. This may be technically possible if you bludgeon the OS enough, but it's definitely not something the built in CLI tooling supports.
- I can't use the old full disk encryption mode. Presumably, this code does or did still exist somewhere, but isn't supported because it's not used in any supported configuration.
So you're left with the option of having no disk encryption on your laptop, or having SIP.
EDIT: I'm thinking of SSV, not SIP per se. But when it comes to disabling the built-in launchd services like Spotlight, you have to disable SSV to do so, and that requires disabling FileVault.
But still -- you can't "unlock" the system (in this sense) without disabling SSV, which requires disabling FileVault.
(Unless I'm wrong about that too, and there is a way to disable Spotlight without disabling SSV)
I'm finally starting to de-Applify my home computing and slowly removing my and my family's dependence on the Apple ecosystem. Replacing an old Mac Mini here, replacing an old MacBook there. It's been a long time coming, but I'm out.
I'm not even mentioning Tahoe which is a disaster but doesn't bother me because I don't have a single machine that can run anything past Ventura anyway.
If the evil maid could boot macOS from an external disk, on the other hand, that would definitely be a problem. I think you need to authenticate in order to boot from an external disk for the first time (cf. [1]) but I'm not sure how this works.
[1] https://eclecticlight.co/2023/03/15/ownership-of-apple-silic...
Edit: Actually I guess an attacker trying to disable SSV themselves (via exploit of recovery mode) wouldn’t have the machine owner key needed to sign the new LocalPolicy. But could they reset it and still keep the data somehow? I don’t know.
I'm also curious about this specific case.
In general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_XaJdDqQA0
All consumer-operating systems also used to be single user with administrative access by default. Shall we return to that, too?
https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html
It does cost $14.95 USD, but it's given me my computer back for years now. I have Spotlight Indexer set to 10%, although I'm using an old version of macOS and don't know if that's mdutil now or if Apple has outsmarted its throttling. I also set web browsers to 10% when they're in the background. And you can always message the developer with feature requests.
A bit of a rant: I honestly feel that we've done process scheduling wrong in most OSs and apps. It should have always been up to the user, along with granting permissions as needed. And I can't believe that no web browser has implemented turning JavaScript off after perhaps 10 seconds for example, so that we can have as many tabs open as we want. Instead we've let the technology order us what to do. It's all just so wrong. But the barriers to entry for writing a new browser are so high that only large organizations can do it, and they choose not to, so help isn't coming. Although I think with the arrival of AI, we're going to start seeing real software again that makes a mockery of the status quo and hopefully eats its lunch.
Chrome added a feature called "Memory Saver" that suspends tabs in the background. I believe other browsers have similar features.
Disabling and then re-enabling Javascript will cause my bank's web site to log you out, requiring full 2FA to log in again.
I've been Apple fan for all those years but it is becoming harder and harder. M1 will be my first HW replaced before it stops working. Just because of software.
I'm already in process migrating to Linux.
Further, Spotlight is completely broken in Tahoe. I have all categories off in System Preferences except Apps because it's the only thing I use or want to use spotlight for, a quick way to launch apps. But as of Tahoe 26.2 or so Spotlight is showing tons of non-app results so it's no longer useful as an app launcher.
Incredibly, the current mitigation is a cronjob to SIGSTOP it once per minute. https://github.com/jac-jim/stop-mediaanalysisd
Yearslong history of this issue, with it getting harder and harder. https://gist.github.com/huksley/564be2c903312bcee7dffe415d12...
https://github.com/jankais3r/Siri-NoLoggingPLS
Disable server-side logging of Siri requests for your Mac, iPhone and iPad
<key>allowAssistant</key><false/>Also note that you don't need a supervised iOS device for it, it can be installed on any Apple device.
I'm often annoyed how slow/unreliable Spotlight is, especially in Mail, but what's the alternative here?
A feature I never wanted has ruined a feature I do want. It’s a complete own goal. In frustration I turned spotlight off completely a few months ago. Rip.
also, for opening apps, https://charmstone.app/ is pretty great.
What I find really annoying with macos is that with stock/default settings it is the worst UX. You have to download an app to launch apps, an app to move and resize windows, an app to reverse the mouse's wheel direction to be the opposite of the trackpad, an app to manage the menu bar (esp decrease the spacing, so that you can fit items up until the notch). Then, you also need anyway to spend an hour tweaking settings and run custom commands (such as `defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false` so that you can actually type stuff like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa). These are just needed to make using macos bearable, and do not include any kind of "power user" kind of stuff.
I used to hate macos before getting my own mac, because I had to use some at work in their default settings and it was just a horrible experience.
what problem was really solved here?
And then you'll have to wait for grep to trawl every folder to find the right file rather than consult an optimised index.
Oh it doesn't have those things so is a non-option.
Tahoe in general sucks but Spotlight has been a pretty good local search for nearly twenty years. The image OCR added in Sonoma made it even more useful.
Good for you. Do you want a medal?
Finding files often means more than just looking in folders for adequately named files. Sometimes, it's looking for the contents of files, for things that aren't files (because some kinds of files on macOS aren't actually files, they're folders that are treated specially by the system), and for things like contacts, calendar events, reminders, mail, etc.
Only if it's tastefully done, and says something like "Grep Champion"
I do, but 80% of the time I'm able to locate it by opening the directory where I would put it. And 10% it's in the "other" directory. And since I have the shell history, in the remaining case it is still a simple search.
I personally disable these kinds of search indexes in favor of find and ag/ripgrep etc. They are very fast on a modern system with SSD.
Not available to regular folks I guess, but use prewritten aliases to simplify.
I essentially use it as an app switcher. Sometimes I'm jumping between 6 different apps across multiple monitors and multiple workspaces on each and it's faster do type the first couple letters of the app I want and hit return than to Cmd+Tab, parse the icons in their unpredictable order (made harder by all icons being squircles now), and tab to which one I want.
But native spotlight is too slow and unpredictable.
Apple is not there yet, but kind of drifting towards becoming the new windows.
Perhaps if macs let you configure Spotlight to ignore some directories you could tell it to ignore the entire disk? Which would disable it in practical terms.
Wasn't able to figure out how to do so but this blog was absolutely the best resource for digging one layer deeper on all things Spotlight-related, highly recommend.
System Settings > General > Language & Region > Live Text
"Select text in images to copy or take action."
automatic OCR / processing of all image files on macOS
photoanalysisd
mediaanalysisd
com.apple.photos.backgroundAnalysisServiceI run cpu usage meters in my menu bar. The efficiency cores always seem busy doing one thing or another on modern macOS. It feels like Apple treats my e-cores as a playground for stupid features that their developers want a lot more than I do - like photoanalysisd, or file indexing to power spotlight, that hasn’t worked how I want it to for a decade.
I have a Linux workstation, and the difference in responsiveness is incredible. Linux feels like a breath of fresh air. On a technical level, my workstation cpu is barely any faster. But it idles at 0%. Whenever I issue a command, I feel like the computer has been waiting for me and then it springs to action immediately.
To your point, I don’t care why these random processes are using all my cpu. I just want them to stop. I paid good money for my Apple laptop. The computer is for me. I didn’t pay all that money so some Apple engineer can vomit all over with their crappy, inefficient code.
Google’s model will reportedly run on Apple’s own servers, which in practice means that no user data will be shared with Google. Instead, they won’t leave Apple’s Private Cloud Compute structure.[1]
1: https://9to5mac.com/2025/11/05/google-gemini-1-billion-deal-...
We still have Google models running on hardware people pay thousands of dollars for, under the impression it wasn't a Google device.
Imagine the gigantic temptation of gigantic wads of cash Google would pay Apple to allow Gemini to index and produce analytics about your data on your machine.
Now Google have a foot in the door.
Maybe Apple could offer a $200 upgrade on Mac purchase to get it without all of the Apple Intelligence features?
People like him are an inspiration to me.
In the past, when Spotlight was too slow to show me my most used applications by the first few letters, I'd bail and use Applications.
Now I'd have to use Finder, but opening that up would be slow enough that I'd almost need a desktop shortcut.
So, in essence, I have to hack around the most common functionality of using an application on an operating system, which is finding the damn thing. And this is supposed to be the most polished operating system on the market?
Apple frequently appears to be asleep at the wheel.
Now that causes the screen to freeze for half a second (possibly my fault - I have 'reduce animations' switched on, but it seems to freeze the screen for the duration of the animation that would previously have played), and then the colour wheel spins for a couple of seconds, and then it might finally respond to my keyboard input... but even then, it fails to find the app maybe 20% of the time. This is on a ~1yo M4 Macbook Pro w/ 36 GB RAM.
So for the past month I've been training myself to alt+tab round to the finder window and navigate to the apps folder from there.
I've never been much of a Macos fan, but this is shockingly poor - less of a papercut, more a wedge of smouldering bamboo shoved under my fingernails.
except it doesn't match on Apple's built-in applications like Calendar or Screenshot.app, which makes it useless to me since I don't mentally separate Apple Apps from third party ones when trying to find or search for apps.