Download and manage AI models on Mac

On a Mac with Apple silicon, Merrimo can draw pictures on the Mac itself, free and unlimited, with models it downloads once. You don't have to wait: you keep writing while they download, and the picture buttons switch on when they land.

What Merrimo downloads

Everyday Pictures draws your characters, places and comic panels. It comes in Standard or Best quality, picked from your Mac's memory: Best needs 48 GB, and Standard runs well from 20 GB (a Mac with less gets a lighter version).

Merrimo doesn't download a model for writing help. To get writing help from a model on this Mac, run it in a model server such as LM Studio or Ollama and connect that: see Set up AI in Merrimo on Mac.

You pick pictures on this Mac when you first set up Merrimo (see Get started). To add them later, choose Tools › Models, select Everyday Pictures in the sidebar, and click Get on this Mac's card: see Everyday Pictures on each machine.

Follow downloads in the toolbar

While models download, the activity item in the toolbar of the Stories window and of your story windows shows their progress, with the percentage and time left in its tooltip. On macOS 26 or later the item is a round, colored orb that mixes its colors while models download. On macOS 15 it shows a progress ring and a word such as Getting ready. Click it to see each download:

Pause All and Resume All pause or resume everything; the button on a row pauses or resumes just that download. A pause lasts until you resume, even if you quit Merrimo.
If the internet drops, the download says Waiting for the internet and the download picks up where it left off when you're back online. Click Try Now to try straight away.
If a download stops, click Try Again: it continues from where it stopped. Copy Details copies what went wrong, to send to support.
To cancel a paused or stopped download, click Cancel All (or the cancel button on its row), then Cancel Download. Merrimo deletes what it has downloaded so far.

When everything is on this Mac, the download says Ready and suggests something to try, such as picking a character and choosing Draw Portrait. Click Show Me to go back to your stories.

Pictures and writing in progress

The same toolbar item shows when anything is being made: a picture being drawn on this Mac or by a cloud service, or writing help from a model on this Mac or in the cloud. On macOS 26 or later the orb spins while any of them runs, in the colors of the picture being drawn. Click it to see the jobs, listed as in the Jobs window: what's running, with Cancel on each row, and what finished. Click Open Jobs Window to see a job's details. With Use AI off and nothing going on, there's no toolbar item.

See every model on every machine

The Models window lists the model files on every machine you render on: this Mac and each Mac or PC in Settings › Rendering. Choose Tools › Models (or press ⇧⌘M) to open it. It's on a Mac with Apple silicon, whether Use AI is on or off. You can also open it from Models on This Machine… in Settings › Rendering, and from Copy Missing Models… when a workflow can't run because a model is missing.

Show me how: Manage models across your render machines ↗

The Models window on All Models showing the sidebar, presence columns for each machine, and the model inspector. — See every model across This Mac and linked render machines in the Models window.

Each row is one model, and each machine has a column. The same file on two machines counts once, even under two names: Merrimo matches files by their checksum. A model that comes in several builds, such as Z-Image Turbo in bf16, Q8_0 and Q5_K_S, is one row, and each cell names the build that machine has.
A check means the model is on that machine. A cloud means it's only in iCloud Drive, which doesn't count for rendering. A warning means that machine has a different file with the same name. Low VRAM (a PC) or Low memory (a Mac) means no build of it fits that machine's graphics memory or unified memory; point at it to see how much it needs and how much the machine can spare. Free disk space plays no part in it.
In the sidebar, Not Everywhere lists models missing from a machine that could run them, and Needs Attention lists iCloud copies and same-named different files. Select a machine to see just its models, or a kind (Diffusion Models, Text Encoders, VAEs, LoRAs, Upscalers).
Select a model to see where it is on each machine, which workflows use it, and what its file says: its architecture and precision come from the file's own header. If the header doesn't say the architecture, pick it from the Architecture menu. Merrimo remembers your choice and never renames the file.
Click Refresh (or press ⌘R) to ask every machine again. A machine that's offline keeps its column, dimmed, with what it had when it was last online.

Copy a model to a machine

Drag a model's row onto a machine in the sidebar, or onto its cell in that machine's column. You can also Control-click the row and choose a machine under Copy to, or hover over an empty cell and click Copy or Get. Machines copy straight to each other over your network; this Mac only coordinates. Copies and downloads run in the toolbar's activity item, with pause, resume and time left, and the cell shows how far each has got.

Copy a model to another render machine and follow transfer progress in its presence cell.

Each machine gets the build its memory can run: the largest whose weights, with the models its workflow loads alongside, fit in about two thirds of its memory (a Mac's unified memory, a PC's graphics memory). Drag the bf16 build onto a MacBook Air with 24 GB, for example, and the Air gets the Q8_0 build, downloaded there. A model with no build that fits shows Low VRAM or Low memory and isn't copied, however much free disk space the machine has. To copy it anyway, point at the cell and click Copy Anyway (the inspector has the same button), or hold ⌥ while you drop it. Merrimo checks there's enough free disk space before every copy.

Remove a model from a machine

Control-click the row and choose a machine under Remove from, or hover over the model's cell and click Remove. Merrimo says where the model stays and how much space it frees, then moves the file to that machine's Trash (or Recycle Bin). If it's the only copy, it says so, and Cancel is the default button, so pressing Return keeps it.

Confirmation dialog when removing the only copy of a model. — When removing the only copy of a model, Cancel is the default button so pressing Return keeps the file.

Everyday Pictures on each machine

Select Everyday Pictures in the sidebar to see Merrimo's picture models on each machine. Each card shows the build that machine gets from its memory: High Quality (bf16) with 48 GB or more, Standard (Q8_0) with 20 GB or more, Low Memory (Q5_K_S) below that. Click Get to download it there, Pause to pause it, or Remove… to move its files to that machine's Trash. Getting it on this Mac also starts this Mac rendering; removing it from this Mac stops this Mac rendering, so it doesn't download straight back.

Everyday Pictures cards for each render machine showing memory tiers and Ready or Get status. — Everyday Pictures picks the right quality tier for each machine's memory.

Models in iCloud Drive

If a machine's ComfyUI models folder is in iCloud Drive (in Documents, with Desktop & Documents syncing), some of its models may be placeholders that iCloud hasn't downloaded. Merrimo shows those with a cloud and doesn't count them for rendering. Select the machine to see the notice: on this Mac, click Move Out of iCloud to move the downloaded models into Merrimo's own models folder, which isn't synced, or Download All Now to have iCloud fetch the placeholders first.

A machine's page showing the iCloud Drive models folder notice and storage summary. — Move models out of iCloud Drive or download evicted placeholders from a machine's page.

A machine that runs ComfyUI without Merrimo

Merrimo sees a machine's models through the Merrimo Bridge, a small ComfyUI node that adds sizes, checksums, copying and removing. Merrimo puts it in every ComfyUI it runs, so a Mac running Merrimo has it already. A machine that runs ComfyUI alone, such as a Windows PC, shows its models by name only until you install it there:

Select the machine in the Models window and click Install Bridge…. Merrimo saves a StoryForgeBridge folder to your Downloads folder, with this Mac's link key already in its keys.txt.
Copy that folder into the custom_nodes folder of the ComfyUI on that machine.
Restart ComfyUI there, then click Refresh in the Models window.

The Bridge only answers requests carrying a link key in its keys.txt. To copy this Mac's key again, open Settings › Rendering and click Copy next to This Mac's Link Key. For another Mac to see the models on this Mac, paste that Mac's key into Keys from Other Macs here.

If the Bridge doesn't recognize this Mac's key, the machine's page says The Bridge doesn’t know this Mac, and names the keys.txt the Bridge reads, with the first few characters of each key in it next to the start of this Mac's key. If ComfyUI is installed in more than one place, paste the key into the file the page names. The Bridge reads keys.txt again on every request, so there's no need to restart ComfyUI after you save it. Notepad's and PowerShell's encodings are both fine.

Put away model files you downloaded

Model files that arrive in your Downloads folder (.safetensors, .gguf, .ckpt and .pt files) show under Downloads in the sidebar while the Models window is open. Each says what its header says it is and suggests a folder. Click Put Away to move it into this Mac's models folder; select it first to choose the machines it's then copied to (a machine whose memory is too small is left unticked). A file that's already in your library offers Move to Trash instead. You can also drop model files anywhere in the window.

The Downloads inbox in the Models window showing a downloaded LoRA file ready to Put Away. — Put away model files from your Downloads folder into the right ComfyUI subfolder and copy them to your machines.

An agent connected to Merrimo can do the same: list the models on each machine, copy what a workflow needs, and get Everyday Pictures onto a machine. You see it happen in the Models window.