Ollama Commands

Ollama offers a variety of command-line tools (CLI) for interacting with locally running models.

To see a list of available commands, you can use:

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ollama --help

This will display the following:

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Large language model runner

Usage:
  ollama [flags]
  ollama [command]

Available Commands:
  serve       Start ollama
  create      Create a model from a Modelfile
  show        Show information for a model
  run         Run a model
  stop        Stop a running model
  pull        Pull a model from a registry
  push        Push a model to a registry
  list        List models
  ps          List running models
  cp          Copy a model
  rm          Remove a model
  help        Help about any command

Flags:
  -h, --help      help for ollama
  -v, --version   Show version information

Use "ollama [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Basic Usage

  • Run Ollama with flags: 
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ollama [flags]
  • Run a specific command: 
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ollama [command]

Available Commands

  • serve: Start the Ollama service.
  • create: Create a model using a Modelfile.
  • show: Display detailed information about a model.
  • run: Run a model.
  • stop: Stop a running model.
  • pull: Download a model from a registry.
  • push: Upload a model to a registry.
  • list: List all available models.
  • ps: List currently running models.
  • cp: Copy a model.
  • rm: Delete a model.
  • help: Get help for any command.

Flags

  • -h, --help: Show help information for Ollama.
  • -v, --version: Display the version of Ollama.

Model Management

Download a Model

To download a model from the registry: 

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ollama pull <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama pull deepseek-r1:8b

Run a Model

To run a downloaded model: 

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ollama run <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama run deepseek-r1:8b

Stop a Running Model

To stop the running Ollama service: 

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ollama stop <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama stop deepseek-r1:8b

List Local Models

To view all downloaded models: 

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ollama list

Delete a Model

To remove a local model: 

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ollama rm <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama rm deepseek-r1:8b

Custom Models

Create a Custom Model

To create a custom model from an existing one: 

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ollama create <custom-model-name> -f <Modelfile>

Example: 

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ollama create my-model-name -f ./Modelfile

Push a Custom Model

To upload a custom model to the registry: 

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ollama push <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama push my-llama2

Copy a Model

To duplicate an existing model: 

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ollama cp <source-model-name> <new-model-name>

Example: 

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ollama cp llama2 my-llama2-copy

Service Management

Start Ollama Service

To start the Ollama service in the background: 

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ollama serve

Other Common Commands

View Help

To see all available commands: 

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ollama --help

Or

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ollama -h

Check Version

To check the installed version of Ollama: 

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ollama --version

Or

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ollama -v

The output looks something like this:

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ollama version is 0.5.7

Model Information

View Model Details

To see detailed information about a model: 

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ollama show <model-name>

Example: 

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ollama show deepseek-r1:8b

The output is as follows:

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Model
  architecture        llama
  parameters          8.0B
  context length      131072
  embedding length    4096
  quantization        Q4_K_M

Parameters
  stop    "<｜begin▁of▁sentence｜>"
  stop    "<｜end▁of▁sentence｜>"
  stop    "<｜User｜>"
  stop    "<｜Assistant｜>"

License
  MIT License
  Copyright (c) 2023 DeepSeek