What is ~/.ollama/models on Mac? Is it safe to delete?

Where it is

What it is

Ollama runs large language models locally. Every model you pull is saved in ~/.ollama/models, split into a manifests folder that describes each model and a blobs folder that holds the actual weight files.

Models are big, and trying a few different ones fills the folder quickly. Models can share blobs, which is why removing files by hand is a bad idea: you cannot easily tell which blob belongs to which model.

Nothing here is personal data. It is all downloaded model data, apart from any custom models you created yourself from a Modelfile.

How big it gets

Each model is typically several GB, and larger models take tens of GB.

How to clear it by hand

1. Open Terminal and run the command below to list your models with their sizes.
2. Remove a model you do not need with ollama rm followed by its name, for example the name shown in the first column of the list.
3. Repeat for each model you want gone. Ollama deletes only the blobs that no remaining model uses.

ollama list

What happens afterwards

A removed model is no longer available offline. Running ollama pull or ollama run with its name downloads it again, which can take a while on a slow connection.

How Diskzy handles it

Diskzy lists Ollama models in the Clean up tab but leaves them unticked, because they would have to download again. System Data also shows AI models as their own named part.

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