Pull and Run Models

~22 min · ollama, models

Level 0Downloader

0 XP0/41 lessons0/11 achievements

0/120 XP to next level120 XP to go0% complete

The model:tag namespace

Every Ollama model is addressed as name:tag. The default tag (whatever ollama pull qwen2.5 resolves to) is a sensible quantization picked by the model maintainers. To pin a specific quantization or size, use the explicit tag form.

Example: qwen2.5:7b-instruct-q5_K_M reads as:

qwen2.5 — model family
7b — parameter size
instruct — variant (instruction-tuned, not base)
q5_K_M — quantization

Pulling and running

ollama pull downloads the model blobs (layered like Docker layers — same blob shared across tags is downloaded once). ollama run starts an interactive chat REPL and pulls the model first if you don't have it. Both commands resume on partial downloads.

Where models live

On macOS: ~/.ollama/models/. On Linux: /usr/share/ollama/.ollama/models/. Move them to an external drive with the OLLAMA_MODELS environment variable — useful when your boot drive is small.

Code

Pull, run, list, inspect·bash

# Pull the default tag
ollama pull qwen2.5

# Pull a specific quant
ollama pull qwen2.5:7b-instruct-q5_K_M

# Run interactively (pulls if missing)
ollama run qwen2.5
# /bye to exit, /? for help

# List installed models with sizes
ollama list

# Inspect a specific model
ollama show qwen2.5:7b
ollama show qwen2.5:7b --modelfile

# Currently loaded models + memory usage
ollama ps

Move models to external storage·bash

# macOS / Linux: relocate the model store
export OLLAMA_MODELS=/Volumes/ExternalSSD/ollama-models

# Persist on macOS so launchd inherits it
launchctl setenv OLLAMA_MODELS /Volumes/ExternalSSD/ollama-models

# Re-pull or symlink existing models
ollama pull qwen2.5:7b

External links

Exercise

Pull two flavors of the same model: the default tag and an explicit larger quantization. Run ollama list and ollama show on both. Note the size difference and the default num_ctx Ollama assigned.