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Ollama for macOS

System Requirements

  • MacOS Monterey (v12) or newer
  • Apple M series (CPU and GPU support) or x86 (CPU only)

Filesystem Requirements

The preferred method of installation is to mount the ollama.dmg and drag-and-drop the Ollama application to the system-wide Applications folder. Upon startup, the Ollama app will verify the ollama CLI is present in your PATH, and if not detected, will prompt for permission to create a link in /usr/local/bin

Once you've installed Ollama, you'll need additional space for storing the Large Language models, which can be tens to hundreds of GB in size. If your home directory doesn't have enough space, you can change where the binaries are installed, and where the models are stored.

Changing Install Location

To install the Ollama application somewhere other than Applications, place the Ollama application in the desired location, and ensure the CLI Ollama.app/Contents/Resources/ollama or a sym-link to the CLI can be found in your path. Upon first start decline the "Move to Applications?" request.

Troubleshooting

Ollama on MacOS stores files in a few different locations. - ~/.ollama contains models and configuration - ~/.ollama/logs contains logs - app.log contains most recent logs from the GUI application - server.log contains the most recent server logs - <install location>/Ollama.app/Contents/Resources/ollama the CLI binary

Uninstall

To fully remove Ollama from your system, remove the following files and folders:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Ollama.app
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ollama
rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/Ollama"
rm -rf "~/Library/Saved Application State/com.electron.ollama.savedState"
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.electron.ollama/
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/ollama
rm -rf ~/Library/WebKit/com.electron.ollama
rm -rf ~/.ollama