Preload an Ollama model into memory and unload it immediately (keep_alive control)
domain: ollama.com · 5 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Preload for faster first response: POST /api/generate with {"model": "llama3.2"} and an empty/omitted prompt, or POST /api/chat with "messages": []. The call returns immediately with done:true (chat returns done_reason: "load").
Unload now: same empty request plus "keep_alive": 0 — response has done_reason: "unload".
Per-request residency: keep_alive accepts a duration string ("10m", "24h"), seconds as a number (3600), 0 (unload right after the response), or a negative value like -1 (keep loaded indefinitely). Default is 5m.
Server-wide default: start the server with OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE set (same value formats). The per-request keep_alive on /api/generate and /api/chat overrides it.
Verify residency with GET /api/ps (shows loaded models and their expires_at).
Known gotchas
Every inference request resets the unload timer with its own keep_alive — a single request with keep_alive:0 after a long-lived one will still unload the model.
Preload responses carry no stats fields; don't wait for eval_count.
OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE is read by the server process at startup — exporting it in your client shell does nothing.
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