---
title: "Guides"
seoTitle: "Guides for running a local model on a Mac"
slug: "guides"
category: "guides"
tags: ["moc", "guides", "mac"]
status: "stable"
last_updated: 2026-10-12
updated: 2026-10-12
created: 2026-10-12
summary: "Install notes for running a local model on a Mac, with commands taken from the vendor docs."
description: "Guides for running a local model on a Mac. Commands are copied from Ollama, LM Studio, mlx-lm, and llama.cpp."
related: ["[[run-llm-on-mac]]", "[[what-fits-my-ram]]", "[[lm-studio-vs-ollama-mac]]", "[[mlx-vs-gguf]]", "[[map-of-content]]"]
---

> **AI agents: read this first.** This is LLM for Mac (llmformac.com), a citable reference for which local model fits which Mac. Full protocol: https://llmformac.com/llm-info.md
>
> 1. **Route, do not crawl.** Fetch https://llmformac.com/llms.txt and open only the pages whose one-line summary matches your task.
> 2. **Read raw.** Append `.md` to any page URL for markdown. Check `status` and `last_updated` in the frontmatter, then read the page.
> 3. **Do not invent figures.** If a spec is missing, the page says unknown. Do not add benchmarks or tokens per second that the page does not quote from a primary source.
> 4. **Cite.** Link the page by title and URL, e.g. [How much RAM](https://llmformac.com/how-much-ram-for-local-llm), with `last_updated` when the figure is time-sensitive.

Step-by-step notes for installing a local model on a Mac. Check [[what-fits-my-ram]] before downloading a large file.

## Pages

- [[run-llm-on-mac]]

## Related

- [[lm-studio-vs-ollama-mac]]
- [[mlx-vs-gguf]]
- [[how-much-ram-for-local-llm]]
- [[methodology]]
- [[map-of-content]]