everyday mac tools

Turn off personalized ads on a Mac, and what the switch leaves on

· 6 min read

To turn off personalized ads on a Mac, open System Settings, go to Privacy and Security, scroll down to Apple Advertising and switch off Personalized Ads. That stops Apple using your account details and your activity in its apps to choose which ads you see there. It does not reduce the number of ads, and it does nothing about ads or tracking on the web or in other companies’ apps. Those have their own switches, covered below.

Turn it off in System Settings

  1. Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
  2. Click Privacy and Security in the sidebar.
  3. Scroll toward the bottom and click Apple Advertising.
  4. Switch off Personalized Ads.

On macOS Monterey and Big Sur, the same control is in System Preferences, Security and Privacy, on the Privacy tab, under Apple Advertising in the list on the left. On macOS Catalina and earlier the item is called Advertising, and the option is a checkbox labelled Limit Ad Tracking, which you tick.

The same pane has two buttons worth a look. View Ad Targeting Information shows what Apple would use to pick ads for you. About Apple Advertising and Privacy opens the full explanation in Apple’s words.

Two things catch people out:

  • It is per user account. On a shared Mac, each person signs in and sets it for themselves.
  • It is per device. An iPhone and an iPad have their own switch under Settings, Privacy and Security, Apple Advertising. Do not assume one device’s choice carried to the others; check each.

If the switch is already off and grayed out, that is expected for child accounts and for accounts managed by a school or an employer.

What the switch changes

Apple runs its own advertising platform, and its ads appear in a short list of Apple apps: the App Store, Apple News and Stocks, in the regions where those carry ads.

With Personalized Ads on, Apple picks ads using information tied to your account and your activity in those apps, such as what you have downloaded or what you read. It places you in groups of people with similar characteristics rather than building a profile of you alone.

With it off, Apple stops using that information. Ads are chosen by context instead: the words you typed into the App Store search field, the kind of story you are reading in News, your device type and language.

So the honest summary is this: the same number of ads, chosen with less knowledge of you. If the goal is fewer ads, this switch will not deliver it. If the goal is less use of your data, it does exactly that, within Apple’s own apps.

What it does not touch

The name of the setting suggests more than it covers. It has no effect on:

  • Ads on websites. Those come from advertising networks that work through your browser, and they are governed by browser settings.
  • Apps from other companies that track you across apps and sites. That is the Tracking setting, described next.
  • The ad settings on your other accounts. Search engines, social networks and shopping sites each keep their own ad preferences on their own websites, tied to the account you sign in with there.
  • Analytics. Sharing usage data with Apple and with app developers is a separate set of switches.

The other switches worth setting at the same time

These take a few minutes together and cover the gaps above.

  1. Tracking. In System Settings, Privacy and Security, Tracking, switch off Allow Apps to Request to Track. Apps are then refused automatically rather than asking you one by one.
  2. Cross-site tracking in Safari. In Safari, Settings, Privacy, confirm Prevent cross-site tracking is ticked. It is on by default. Hide IP address from trackers is on the same tab.
  3. Ad measurement in Safari. Safari has an option named Allow privacy-preserving measurement of ad effectiveness, on the Advanced tab in recent versions and on the Privacy tab in older ones. It concerns reporting on whether an ad led to a purchase, not targeting, and you can turn it off.
  4. Location Services. In System Settings, Privacy and Security, Location Services, review which apps have access. An ad shown inside an app can only be tailored to where you are if that app is allowed to use your location.
  5. Analytics and Improvements. Also under Privacy and Security. Switch off Share Mac Analytics and the options beneath it if you would rather not send usage data.

If you are going through privacy settings in one sitting, Turn off Siri suggestions and lookups that send data off your Mac covers the search and lookup side, and Reading a macOS permission prompt before you click Allow helps with the prompts apps raise afterwards.

Setting it from Terminal, or on several Macs

People who script their Mac setup often use this command:

defaults write com.apple.AdLib allowApplePersonalizedAdvertising -bool false

Treat it as a convenience, not a guarantee. Apple does not document the key, and its behavior can change between macOS versions. After running it, open the Apple Advertising pane and confirm the switch really is off, because the pane is the source of truth. What defaults write does, and how to undo one safely explains how these commands work and how to reverse one.

Privacy switches are also worth checking again after a major macOS upgrade. Most survive, but new versions add new options with their own defaults; Mac settings that revert after a macOS update lists the usual ones to look at.

If you keep several Macs in the same state, or you set Macs up for other people, Mainspring includes a No personalized ads power-up alongside others such as disabling Siri and requiring a password on sleep. Each power-up is a real macOS setting with a plain English label, snapshotted before it changes so it flips back in one click. Its Privacy and Security recipe applies a bundle of these as a set and reverts them as a set. Mainspring is $29 once for up to 3 Macs, with a free 1-day trial that needs no account or card. For one Mac and one setting, the System Settings steps above are all you need.

Questions

Will I see fewer ads after turning this off? No. Apple says as much in the pane itself. You see ads in the same places, chosen by context rather than by what Apple knows about you.

Does this stop websites tracking me in Safari? No. That is handled by Prevent cross-site tracking in Safari’s settings, which is on by default, and by the Tracking setting for apps.

Do I need to turn it off on my iPhone as well? Yes. The setting is made on each device. On iPhone and iPad it is under Settings, Privacy and Security, Apple Advertising.

Is there any downside to turning it off? Only that the ads in the App Store, News and Stocks will be less relevant to you. Nothing else on the Mac changes, and you can switch it back on at any time.