How to Run Llama 4 Scout on Apple Silicon via Ollama MLX

Verify your Mac has Apple Silicon (M1+) with at least 16 GB unified memory and macOS 13+.

Install Ollama via Homebrew and confirm the MLX backend is active in server logs.

Select a quantization level (Q4–Q8) matched to your Mac's memory tier.

Pull the appropriate Llama 4 Scout model tag from the Ollama registry.

Configure environment variables for memory management and context window size.

Run interactive inference with --verbose to validate token throughput.

Monitor memory pressure during generation to ensure swap stays minimal.

Integrate with Python applications using Ollama's OpenAI-compatible REST API.

Scout's MoE sparsity and Apple's unified memory solve each other's bottlenecks.…