How to move Ollama models to an external drive

Part of our guide to why System Data is so large on Mac · Updated September 2026 · 5 min read

If you want to keep a large model collection without filling your Mac's internal SSD, you can store Ollama's models on an external drive. A single 70B model is about 42 GB, so this is often the only practical option on a 256 or 512 GB Mac.

What you need

A fast external SSD (USB 3.2, USB4 or Thunderbolt). Models are read into memory once when they load, so speed mostly affects load time, not chat speed.
The drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended, with a stable name, e.g. /Volumes/AI.

1. Quit Ollama

Quit the Ollama app from the menu bar (or stop ollama serve), so nothing is writing to the models folder.

2. Move your existing models

mkdir -p /Volumes/AI/ollama-models
rsync -a --progress ~/.ollama/models/ /Volumes/AI/ollama-models/

Check the copy finished without errors, then remove the old folder to free the space, or move it to the Trash from Finder:

du -sh ~/.ollama/models /Volumes/AI/ollama-models
rm -rf ~/.ollama/models

Copy the whole models folder, with both manifests/ and blobs/. Moving only some blobs breaks the models that use them.

3. Point Ollama at the new folder

If you use the Ollama Mac app, set the variable for apps launched from the Dock, then start Ollama again:

launchctl setenv OLLAMA_MODELS "/Volumes/AI/ollama-models"

launchctl setenv lasts until you restart your Mac. To make it permanent, re-run it at login, for example from a login item or a small LaunchAgent.

If you run ollama serve from Terminal, add this to ~/.zshrc and open a new terminal:

export OLLAMA_MODELS="/Volumes/AI/ollama-models"

4. Check it worked

ollama list

Your models should be listed as before. Pull a small model and confirm the new files appear on the external drive.

What happens if the drive isn't connected?

Ollama won't find your models, and a pull will fail or recreate the folder path. Plug the drive in before starting Ollama. If you mostly use one or two models, keep those on the internal SSD and the rest on the external drive by switching OLLAMA_MODELS when you need them.

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Frequently asked

Can I use a symlink instead? Replacing ~/.ollama/models with a symlink to the external folder also works, but OLLAMA_MODELS is the documented option and easier to undo.

Does this work for LM Studio and Hugging Face? Yes, with their own settings: LM Studio's models folder in My Models (guide) and HF_HOME for Hugging Face (guide).