Skip to content
localmodel.run

Device profile · macOS

Best local LLMs for Apple M4 (24GB)

Apple M4 (24GB) has ~16 GB usable for model weights and runs 45 of 67 popular models. Best tool: LM Studio.

Usable memory
~16 GB
Models run
45
Too large
22
Top pick
21B
Top pick Q4_K_M
gpt-oss 20B Yes

Runs at Q4_K_M using ~13.2 GB of ~16 GB usable.

Runs on Apple M4 (24GB)

Compatible models 45 total

Too large for this device

DeepSeek R1DeepSeek V3Qwen3 235B A22Bgpt-oss 120BLlama 4 ScoutSarvam-105BQwen2.5 72BLlama 3.3 70BMixtral 8x7BCommand R 35BYi 1.5 34BQwen2.5 32BQwen3 32BDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32BQwen2.5 Coder 32BGranite 4.0 H SmallQwen3 30B-A3BSarvam-30BGemma 2 27BGemma 3 27BMistral Small 3 24BSarvam-M 24B

Best way to run models on macOS

Runtime guide macOS

Beginner: LM Studio, Polished GUI, ships MLX on Apple Silicon, one-click model downloads.

Power user: mlx-lm, Apple's MLX framework, usually the fastest on Apple Silicon for the same quant.

vLLM is NOT a Mac tool, it is a CUDA/Linux serving engine. Unified memory is not a fixed VRAM slice; ~70% is usable for weights.

Full macOS tool guide →

FAQ

What is the best local LLM for Apple M4 (24GB)?

gpt-oss 20B is the strongest model that runs comfortably, using ~13.2 GB at Q4_K_M of the ~16 GB usable on Apple M4 (24GB).

How much of Apple M4 (24GB)'s memory can I use for a model?

About 16 GB. Apple Silicon shares one unified memory pool; roughly 66-75% is available to the GPU for model weights, the rest is reserved for macOS.

Which tool should I use on macOS?

LM Studio (Polished GUI, ships MLX on Apple Silicon, one-click model downloads.) or mlx-lm for speed. vLLM is NOT a Mac tool, it is a CUDA/Linux serving engine. Unified memory is not a fixed VRAM slice; ~70% is usable for weights.

Sources

Memory figures are estimates. See methodology.