Opt out of Apple personalized advertising on Mac

Apple runs its own advertising platform, and by default your Mac is opted in — Apple builds an interest profile from your Apple Account activity to personalize the ads it serves. You can opt out in one move: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising, then turn off Personalized Ads. Here is the full opt-out, including how to see and reset what Apple already holds.

Opt out in System Settings

1. Open System Settings and choose Privacy & Security.
2. Scroll to the bottom and click Apple Advertising.
3. Turn off Personalized Ads.

You are now opted out. Apple stops using your account and device activity to target ads within its apps; the change is immediate and needs no logout. The panel is in the same place on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia. Opting back in later is the same switch — nothing about the choice is permanent.

See — and reset — your ad profile

Before or after you opt out, the same panel lets you inspect what Apple has inferred:

• View Ad Information opens a sheet listing the segments Apple has placed you in — broad interest and demographic groupings used to target ads.
• Opting out clears Apple's use of that profile for personalization going forward; it does not need a separate "reset" button.
• The setting is stored per device and per Apple Account, so opting out on your Mac does not opt out your iPhone or iPad. Repeat it on each device under Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising.

Opt out from Terminal

If you manage several Macs or script your setup, the opt-out is one preference key:

# opt out of Apple's personalized advertising
defaults write com.apple.AdLib allowApplePersonalizedAdvertising -bool false

# undo: opt back in
defaults write com.apple.AdLib allowApplePersonalizedAdvertising -bool true

No relaunch is required. To audit a machine, defaults read com.apple.AdLib allowApplePersonalizedAdvertising returns 0 when opted out and 1 when opted in; an error means the key was never set, which is the same as opted in.

Round out the opt-outs

Ad personalization is one of several data streams you can switch off. If you are here to shrink your footprint, turning off Location Services removes the location signal that feeds several Apple features, targeting included.