"Uncensored AI on a Mac" is two questions in one. Which models answer without refusing, and which of them fit into the memory your Mac has. The second question decides more than the first, so this post takes them in that order of usefulness: what the word means, what fits where, and how to get one running with the Mac build of Locally Uncensored (open source, AGPL-3.0, free for local use).
One caveat before anything else. The Mac build is a beta. It has run on one Mac so far, an M5 Pro with 48 GB. Sizes below come from the model files. Where I have not run something on a Mac myself, I say so.
What "uncensored" means for a local model
A local model has no moderation layer in front of it. Nothing reads your prompt before the model does, and nothing reads the answer afterwards. What is left is the model's own training, and a stock model from a big lab is trained to refuse a range of requests.
The models people call uncensored change that part. Two labels come up most:
Abliterated the direction in the weights that produces refusals is removed
Heretic an abliteration made with the Heretic tool, same idea, automated
Neither is magic. An abliterated model can still decline now and then, and removing the refusal behaviour can cost a little quality elsewhere. If one model keeps hedging on the kind of thing you ask, try another one from the list before you blame your prompt.
The app adds nothing on top. The default persona states a role and no content rule in either direction, so what you get is the model.
The number that matters is unified memory
On Apple Silicon there is no separate video memory. The model shares one pool with macOS, your browser and everything else. So the chip name tells you how fast the answer comes, and the memory size tells you which model you can load at all. An M4 with 16 GB loads the same models as an M2 with 16 GB.
A working rule: the model file plus 1 to 2 GB for context has to fit into what is left after macOS and your open apps have taken their 4 to 6 GB.
Chat models, by download size
These are the uncensored chat models the app's catalog recommends to start with:
Llama 3.1 8B Abliterated 5 GB the usual first download
Qwen3-VL 8B Abliterated 5 GB reads images
Gemma 4 12B Heretic 7.4 GB reads images
GLM 4.7 Flash Heretic 10 GB 30B class in a small build
Qwen 3.8 27B Uncensored 18 GB images, tools, switchable thinking
Qwen 3.6 35B MoE Abliterated 24 GB 35B total, 3B active
Read against the rule above, that gives roughly this:
16 GB Mac the 5 GB models comfortably, Gemma 4 12B Heretic with less open
24 GB Mac adds GLM 4.7 Flash Heretic
32 GB Mac adds Qwen 3.8 27B Uncensored, the first tier I would recommend
48 GB and up adds Qwen 3.6 35B MoE Abliterated with room for long context
That mapping is arithmetic on file sizes. I have run chat on the 48 GB machine only, so on a 16 or 24 GB Mac treat it as a starting point and tell me where it is wrong.
The setup wizard picks a first model for your machine, and the model manager marks what fits. You do not have to do this arithmetic yourself. It helps to understand why the app offers what it offers.
Images and video
Create on the Mac makes images and video on the Mac itself, without ComfyUI. The Mac catalog has a separate group called Unfiltered next to Mainstream:
Image models 23 in the catalog, 10 of them in the Unfiltered group
Video models 31 in the catalog, 14 of them in the Unfiltered group
Every tile says how much memory the model needs, and the app holds you to it. Image models start at 8 GB, video models at 16 GB. Most video models in the Mac catalog are marked "Experimental: not yet tested in LU", and that label is meant literally.
For a sense of speed, on the M5 Pro with 48 GB one image took 33 seconds with DreamShaper XL Turbo and 38 seconds with Qwen-Image 2.1 Turbo.
Getting it running
Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or newer. Intel Macs are not supported.
- Download the
.dmgfrom locallyuncensored.com/mac. It is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. - Drag the app into Applications and start it.
- Let the setup wizard pick a first model, or open Models and choose one from the list above.
- Send a message.
There is no account and no sign-in for local use.
What the app sends, since that is the point of running locally
Your prompts and answers stay on the machine when you use a local model. The app has no analytics kit and sends no crash reports. Two things do go out on their own: it asks GitHub Releases for a new version a few seconds after start and at most every six hours after that, and it counts each press of the Cloud switch (which way, the platform and the app version, without an identifier). If you never touch the Cloud switch, the second one never fires.
What is not there yet on a Mac
Training your own character LoRA does not run locally on a Mac. Computer control is in the app but not fully tested on macOS. Voice works locally but is a beta and English only. Remote Access and the automatic update are not confirmed on macOS. I wrote these up in more detail in the post about what the Mac build runs.
Short version
Uncensored on a Mac comes down to picking an abliterated model that fits your unified memory. 16 GB runs the 8B class, 32 GB is where Qwen 3.8 27B Uncensored fits, and the app's Unfiltered groups cover images and video on the same machine. It all runs locally, with no account, in a build that is still a beta and has seen one Mac.
The code is at github.com/PurpleDoubleD/locally-uncensored. The longer tier list by memory size is in What a Mac can actually run locally in 2026, and the background on abliteration is in the abliterated models guide.
If your Mac is too small for the model you want, the bigger ones also run hosted in a browser as LU Cloud. That part is paid. Everything above is free.
Top comments (1)
The distinction between file size and actual Mac behavior is well made. A useful table would separate model weights, KV-cache budget, context length, and measured tokens per second for each tested memory tier. Without those fields, two models that nominally fit the same RAM can have very different interactive limits.