Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, M4, 2025)

Hardware · Apple Silicon

What AI models can the Apple M4 (32 GB) run?

Unified memory
32.0 GB
Usable for models
21.4 GB
Memory bandwidth
120 GB/s
FP16 compute
4.3 TFLOPS
Released
2024
461 / 621 LLMs run Best: Gemma 4 26B-A4B 58 / 61 Image models run Best: FLUX.2 [klein] 4B 24 / 43 Video models run Best: Bernini-R A14B (video generation + editing) 67 / 70 Decision models run Best: Jina Reranker v3.5

macOS lets the GPU use roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of unified memory by default, so we plan around that figure rather than the full 32.0 GB.

More about this hardware

MakerApple Silicon
TypeApple silicon (system on a chip)
ChipApple M4

Apps that run models well on the Apple M4 (32 GB)

macOS

  1. LM StudioRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  2. OllamaOne command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  3. MLX LMRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.
  4. JanRuns the MLX build, typically 20–35% faster than GGUF for a model with 8B active parameters on Apple silicon.

For a typical model that fits in memory. Each model page picks the best app for that model on this hardware. All apps

5 products with the Apple M4 (32 GB)

Best LLMs for the Apple M4 (32 GB)

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
87Excellent quality (A+) · 87 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Gemma 4 26B-A4BGoogle Q4_K_M 18.5 GB 30.0 tok/s Runs welltight fit
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3.6 35B-A3BAlibaba Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3BOpenBMB Q3_K_M 19.7 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3.5 35B-A3BAlibaba Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Raon-1 mini Preview (30B-A4B)KRAFTON Q4_K_M 19.9 GB 26.8 tok/s Runs welltight fit
77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Nex N2 Mini (35B-A3B)Nex-AGI Q3_K_M 19.7 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. KAT-Coder V2.5 Dev (35B-A3B)Kuaishou Q3_K_M 19.5 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Sage-A1.5 35B-A3BInternScience Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
73Great quality (A) · 73 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GLM-4.7 Flash (30B-A3B)Zhipu AI Q3_K_M 18.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs great
75Great quality (A) · 75 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Ornith 1.5 35B-A3BDeepReinforce Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apodex 1.1 Mini (35B-A3B)Apodex Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Ornith 1.0 35B-A3BDeepReinforce Q3_K_M 20.1 GB 46.4 tok/s Runs welltight fit

Best Image models for the Apple M4 (32 GB)

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX.2 [klein] 4BBlack Forest Labs FP16 18.1 GB 17 s Runs well
90Excellent quality (A+) · 90 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Krea 2 TurboKrea FP8 20.2 GB 67 s Slowtight fit
83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. ERNIE-Image TurboBaidu FP8 14.5 GB 50 s Slow
82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX.2 [klein] 9BBlack Forest Labs FP8 19.9 GB 28 s Runs welltight fit
89Excellent quality (A+) · 89 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FLUX 3 Image KleinBlack Forest Labs FP8 12.4 GB 89 s Slow
82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Z-Image TurboAlibaba (Tongyi) FP8 12.6 GB 39 s Runs well

Best Video models for the Apple M4 (32 GB)

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
83Great quality (A) · 83 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Bernini-R A14B (video generation + editing)ByteDance FP8 20.3 GB 3.3 h Very slowtight fit · encoder unloaded after use
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. HY-OmniWeaving (8.3B, unified video)Tencent FP8 15.7 GB 2.4 h Very slowencoder unloaded after use
68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Wan 2.1 I2V 14B 480PAlibaba Q4 GGUF 20.6 GB 5.2 h Very slowtight fit
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. LTX-Video 2BLightricks FP8 10.8 GB 6.5 min Runs well
86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. LTX-2.5 (22B, video + audio)Lightricks FP8 19.7 GB 30.9 min Slowtight fit · CPU offload

Best Decision models for the Apple M4 (32 GB)

Quality Model Quant Memory Speed Runs
86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Jina Reranker v3.5Jina AI Q8_0 3.2 GB 129 ms Runs great
84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Jina Reranker v3Jina AI Q8_0 3.2 GB 129 ms Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. FRIDA-DecisionsSber AI Q8_0 1.7 GB 90 ms Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GLiNER2.5 DecideFastino F16 1.7 GB 63 ms Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Qwen3 Reranker 0.6BAlibaba Q8_0 3.2 GB 129 ms Runs great
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Llama Prompt Guard 2 86MMeta F16 1.2 GB 71 ms Runs great
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. mxbai-rerank-base v2Mixedbread Q8_0 2.9 GB 106 ms Runs great
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GLiClass ModernBERT Large v3Knowledgator F16 1.5 GB 52 ms Runs great

Best LLMs by task on this hardware Open in Model Finder

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

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