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Managing models

Ekorbia has a built-in model manager — download new models and delete old ones without touching a terminal. On the bundled engine (the default) it’s driven by a curated catalog; models download straight into the app.

Opening the manager

Three ways in:

  • Settings → Models — the manager lives as a Settings tab.
  • The model picker — click the model name in the bottom-right of the composer, then Manage models… at the bottom of the list. (If you have no models at all, the picker shows a Download a model… button instead.)
  • The startup dialog — if Ekorbia launches and your selected model isn’t installed, the setup card offers Download a model… directly.

Downloading a model

On the bundled engine, the manager shows the built-in catalog — the Gemma 4 family plus the nomic-embed-text embedding model that folder attachments and search rely on. Each entry lists its download size and how much memory it wants, with the recommended pick flagged. Click Download on any of them.

While a download runs you’ll see a live progress bar with percentage and bytes. Downloads keep running if you close the manager — reopen it any time to check progress, and a notification toast appears when the model is ready. Downloads are checksummed (a corrupted file never looks installed) and resumable: Cancel stops immediately but keeps what’s already downloaded, so retrying later picks up where it left off.

You can queue several downloads at once; each gets its own progress row.

Deleting a model

Click Delete next to any installed model. A confirmation explains what’s about to happen — deleting removes the model’s files from disk, but you can always download it again later. If you delete the model you’re currently chatting with, Ekorbia falls back to another installed model at the next launch so you’re never stranded.

Using Ollama or a custom endpoint instead

If you’ve switched to the Ollama backend under Settings → Backend, the manager instead manages your Ollama models — type any name from ollama.com/library and pull it, or delete what you have. Everything the manager does there can also be done with the Ollama CLI (ollama pull, ollama rm, ollama list); the manager and the CLI see the same models.

On a custom endpoint, the server owns its own model store, so the manager’s download/delete controls are hidden — manage models on that server directly.