Apple Intelligence stuck on "Preparing" status for more than 10 hours

I fixed the "Preparing" problem on my M1 Mac!!

After three days of waiting, I changed the language for Siri to New Zealand and then back to American(United States). Apple Intelligence was immediately available after that. Clearly a bug on Apple's part but an easy fix.

Most likely a carrier restriction. I had the same issue and once I got on a stable WiFi network and reset all of my settings to refresh the Apple Intelligence download it downloaded immediately and began to work.

I posted the other day and mine is still not working after over a week. I've been talking to Apple support on the phone and we tried deleting certain files. They looked at my Wi-Fi and now we're going to partition on an extra drive with a Time Machine, but I am not sure some people are able to do it. I changing language, but mine is not working. I have a M1 pro and I'm able to use Apple and intelligence.

I had the same problem with my Mac mini m2. My MacBook Air m2, iPhone 15 pro and iPad Air 5 already had Apple Intelligence working quickly after joining the waitlist.

I have tried the following:

Check if all the necessary settings are correct, Mac and Siri Language set to US English and Region set to United State.(After you've enabled you can change the region again to your own country.)

I made a Time Machine backup of the current state of my Mac mini.

After that, I completely uninstalled macOS.

Installed the version of macOS that came with my Mac mini out of the box.(through recovery mode)

Set it up as a new Mac.

Install macOS 15.1(If not already installed)

After this enabling apple intelligence was easy. I could pretty much instantly enable Apple Intelligence.

After that, I erased the Mac mini(Reset and start initial setup).

Restored it using the Time Machine backup I made.

After restoring it took about 30mins and now I can use Apple Intelligence.

It is quite a rigorous process, but for me it fixed the issue of being stuck on preparing. I don't know if this will work for iPad or iPhone, but if you really want Apple Intelligence to work, you can try this method though. Keep in mind that it might take a few hours, as you have to uninstall/reinstall/restore macOS/iOS/iPadOS multiple times. It took me about 4-5 hours for the complete process.

On my M3 Macbook I have been waiting for it to fully download since day 1 of the availability. I have been on WiFi the whole time. I’ve switched from 5ghz network to 2.4ghz and back. I have switched languages, rebooted and switched back. I have switched with rebooting. Region is correct. Languages is correct. My internet connection is 300-400Mbps. I get at least 200Mbps on WiFi.

4.43GB and holding.

Maybe I should try ethernet.

After being stuck for nearly two weeks, I went ahead and did the following which worked:

1. Backed up to Time Machine

2. Used Disk Utility to erase the drive

3. Used Recover Utility to reinstall macOS (Sonoma)

4. Updated to the latest macOS Sequoia 15.1.

5. Verified Apple Intelligence was installed and working.

6. Used Migration Assistant to transfer my info from Time Machine.

This has worked for me on two different Macs. On the Apple Intelligence window in Settings change your language to something other than English( I used Cantonese), close, reopen and switch to English (US). It works almost immediately.

I updated to 18.1 on release day and am still waiting for apple intelligence on my MacBook Air M2.

Tried changing the language to an unsupported country and back, restarted multiple times, re-installed Sequoya all to no avail.

I had the same issue… What worked for me was changing my phone language to US English, and then changing Siri language to US English too. I then I restarted, and once that was done I was able to turn Apple Intelligence on.

My Apple Intelligence on two of my 'Mac's was stuck in the “preparing” phase for the last two weeks. Tried all the suggestions posted here, none of them worked for me. I contacted Apple Care, but they had no clue why this was happening.

I decided to take a full Time Machine backup, then factory reset my Mac, and restored it from the backup. And voila, within five minutes, I got a prompt to activate my Apple Intelligence—now it’s activated.

I repeated the same with my second device, and it worked this time too.

My M3 Max MacBook Pro has been stuck on Preparing... for weeks. Trying the solutions here hasn't worked for me yet, but I did notice that while choosing voices, some of them will download for me, like Premium Zoe, but none of the Siri voices will start downloading. They are all stuck at Zero KB, even though I am connected to a very fast WiFi network. I have a feeling that whatever is keeping the voices from downloading is holding up "Apple Intelligence."

I figured it out!!! I was troubleshooting for days about why apple intelligence wasn’t downloading. I realized that I always have battery saver on for macbook. So I connected to wifi as required, then TURNED OFF BATTERY SAVER, and boom, apple intelligence immediately finished and now I have apple intelligence! The whole time it was stuck in preparing because battery saver was turned on and I am guessing that in order to conserve battery it won’t do any major updates or downloads. The gentleman that used his Time Machine and reset his Mac to factory settings got me thinking. Yay!

I figured out that if you have your battery saver on, apple intelligence won’t download. Many people were mentioning having to reset their MB to factory settings and it got me thinking and so I turned off battery saver, connected to WiFi and boom. Downloaded.

Same thing here. We bought a new M3 MacBook Air expressly for the Apple Intelligence features, but the install is still stuck on "Preparing" over more than a week. I had hoped the Sequoia 15.1.1. update would address this, but it has not, and that is extremely annoying. None of the fixes mentioned in this thread have worked. Let's get this fixed, Apple, and soon!

By the way. it installed in a flash on my older M1 MacBook Pro. Go figure.

Mine has been stuck for weeks. Somebody commented in here about the size should be 4.94. Mine is 4.91. I am not sure if that means anything, but when I have time perhaps I will back up time machine wipe out and reinstall. i did do the upodate last night also