Select a piece of text almost anywhere on macOS 27 Golden Gate, and a small circular icon pops up near your cursor. Keep typing in a text field, and a "Write with Siri" prompt can appear above or near what you're writing. For a lot of people this has become the single most noticed, and most complained about, change in the entire release. Here is what it actually is, and every way to make it go away.

What the Write with Siri icon actually is

This is the new Siri AI interface for Writing Tools, Apple's on-device and cloud-assisted feature for composing, rewriting, proofreading, and getting feedback on text. It existed before Golden Gate as a menu item you had to seek out through a right-click menu. In macOS 27, Apple surfaced it proactively: select text, and the icon offers itself before you ask.

It is available on Apple Intelligence-enabled Macs, which Apple defines as the MacBook Neo (A18 Pro) or any Mac model with an M1 chip or later, with Siri and your device language set to a supported language.

Why it is suddenly everywhere

The feature actually started life hidden. During the Golden Gate beta cycle, Apple was testing a popover interface for Siri AI that surfaced Writing Tools and contextual actions on text selection, but it shipped disabled by default in early betas, reachable only through a private feature flag. By the public release, Apple turned it on for everyone. The reaction has been split: some people barely notice it because it sits out of the way, others describe it as the most intrusive thing about the whole update.

Option 1: hide just the floating icon

If Writing Tools itself is fine and only the proactive floating icon bothers you, this is the setting that matches your actual complaint. There is currently no single dedicated toggle in System Settings for just the icon; the practical route is the same feature-flag mechanism Apple used during the beta, run from Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool false

Restart your Mac after running this. It turns off the floating icon specifically while leaving Writing Tools itself reachable the normal way, through the right-click or Edit menu when you select text. To turn the icon back on later, run the same command with -bool true and restart again.

This command edits a system preference domain directly. It is reversible by running the same command with the opposite value, but treat it like any other Terminal command from a tech article: read it before you run it, and don't paste commands from sources you don't trust for anything more sensitive than this.

Option 2: disable Writing Tools entirely

If you want AI writing suggestions gone completely, not just the floating icon, Apple's supported route is through Screen Time's content restrictions, which also works even if the Terminal command above feels like overkill:

  1. System Settings > Screen Time.
  2. Content & Privacy, then turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions if it isn't already.
  3. Click Intelligence & Siri.
  4. Turn off Writing Tools.

This removes both the floating icon and the ability to invoke Writing Tools manually from any menu. It is the cleanest option if you simply don't want the feature at all, on this Mac, for anyone using it.

Option 3: switch to Siri Classic

If your actual objection is to the new Siri AI experience broadly, rather than Writing Tools specifically, Golden Gate offers a named option to step back to the previous Siri:

  1. System Settings > Siri.
  2. Choose Turn Off Siri, then confirm.
  3. Turn Siri back on, and when prompted, choose Use Siri Classic instead of Siri AI.

This affects Siri specifically. It does not by itself remove the Write with Siri text-selection icon, since that is tied to Writing Tools rather than to which version of Siri you're running; combine it with Option 2 if you want both changed.

Option 4: turn off Siri completely

If you don't use Siri at all, the simplest fix is turning it off outright: System Settings > Siri > Turn Off Siri. Note that in Golden Gate this only addresses Siri itself. It is not the single master switch for every Apple Intelligence feature, since Apple removed that master toggle in this release. See our guide to the missing Apple Intelligence off switch for the full picture of what each individual control does and does not turn off.

Can you disable it for just one app?

Not currently, as a dedicated, verified setting. There is no confirmed per-app switch specifically for the floating Siri AI interface in macOS 27. What does exist at the per-app level is Siri Suggestions and Privacy controls under System Settings > Siri > App Access, including an option to turn off "Learn from this application" and to hide Siri Suggestions in a specific app, but these govern suggestions and learning, not the floating writing icon itself.

Some third-party apps expose their own local toggle for the same underlying system feature. If you use an app like Drafts, check its own editor or writing settings before resorting to the system-wide Terminal command, since disabling it at the app level is cleaner when the option exists.

The short version

  • The floating "Write with Siri" icon is the proactive, text-selection surface for Writing Tools in macOS 27, turned on by default where it was hidden behind a feature flag during the beta.
  • Hide just the icon with the LightweightUI_macOS Terminal command and a restart.
  • Turn off Writing Tools entirely through Screen Time > Content & Privacy > Intelligence & Siri.
  • Switch to Siri Classic if your objection is to the new Siri experience broadly, not specifically to writing suggestions.
  • There is no confirmed, dedicated per-app toggle for the floating icon; check an individual app's own settings first.