Local Metis models

Metis On-Device runs a model on the Mac, under MLX. Fotometis offers three models. The Assistant tab of the settings lists them, with the disk space and the memory that each one needs.

A local model is free of charge, and nothing about your photos leaves the app. These three models are small. They understand a limited range of requests, and they make mistakes a larger model does not. For the choice between a local model, a hosted model, and an agent, see Which model to use. For the setup, see Set up the assistant.

Model	Base model	Disk	Memory
Metis Micro	Qwen 3.5 0.8B	1 GB	4 GB
Metis Small	Qwen 3.5 4B	3 GB	8 GB
Metis Large	Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B	20 GB	48 GB

If the Mac has too little memory for a model, Fotometis warns you and still offers the download.