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You can run DeepSeek on your own Mac or Windows PC, so your questions never reach DeepSeek’s servers. Off Grid AI Desktop (OGAD) is a free, open-source app that downloads DeepSeek R1 models from Hugging Face and runs them on your computer, with no account and no internet after the download. A computer holds much bigger models than a phone. A 16 GB laptop runs the 8B, and 32 GB runs the 32B. The full DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is still out of reach for any normal computer.
Download OGAD for Mac, Windows or Linux
What do the DeepSeek app and website do with your chats?
DeepSeek’s privacy policy, last updated 10 February 2026, covers the app and chat.deepseek.com, and says:
- It stores your personal data in the People’s Republic of China.
- It uses what you type, including prompts, uploaded files and chat content, to train and improve its models.
- You can opt out of training, but only by emailing [email protected].
DeepSeek also publishes its model weights openly under the MIT licence. Run them on your own computer and nothing is sent to DeepSeek at all.
Which DeepSeek model fits your computer?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has more than 500 billion parameters (model card). That needs a server, not a laptop. What runs well at home are the R1 distills, which DeepSeek built by training Qwen models on R1’s step-by-step reasoning. They think out loud before they answer.
Pick the biggest file that fits with room to spare. With the Q4_K_M files from Hugging Face:
| Your computer | DeepSeek model | Download |
|---|---|---|
| 8 GB RAM, or a Mac with 8 GB | R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | 1.1 GB |
| 16 GB RAM, or an Nvidia GPU with 8 GB | R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | 5 GB |
| 24 GB RAM, or a GPU with 12 GB+ | R1 Distill Qwen 14B | 9 GB |
| 32 GB+ RAM, or a GPU with 24 GB | R1 Distill Qwen 32B | 19.9 GB |
File sizes are from Hugging Face (1.5B, 8B, 14B, 32B). A running model needs more memory than its file, for the chat it holds, so leave a few GB free for the rest of your apps.
OGAD uses Metal on Apple silicon Macs, CUDA on Nvidia cards and Vulkan on other GPUs, and falls back to the CPU when there’s no supported GPU. The CPU works, just slower.
How to run DeepSeek on your Mac or PC
- Download OGAD for macOS, Windows or Linux, install it and open it.
- Open Models.
- Type
deepseek r1in Search models…. - Scroll to Hugging Face results and open a DeepSeek R1 Distill model. The Fits in memory filter narrows the list to files your machine can hold.
- Pick a Q4_K_M file in the size from the table above and tap Download.
- Set it as the active model and start a chat.
Once the file is on your disk, you can switch off Wi-Fi and it keeps answering.
The Models screen in OGAD.
For developers: OGAD also serves the model through a local OpenAI-compatible API at http://127.0.0.1:7878/v1, with no key by default. Point any OpenAI client at it and your code talks to DeepSeek on your own machine.
What to expect
- It thinks first. R1 models write out their reasoning before the answer. Good for maths, logic and debugging, slow for a quick question.
- Bigger is better, up to a point. The 32B is much stronger than the 1.5B, but it’s still far behind the full DeepSeek on hard coding and broad knowledge.
- For quick everyday chat, try Qwen too. Qwen 3.6 35B A3B is in OGAD’s catalog (a 22 GB download). It uses about 3 billion parameters per token, so on a 32 GB machine it replies much faster than a dense model its size, without the long R1 reasoning.
If something goes wrong
| Symptom | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Replies crawl along | The model is bigger than your GPU memory, so part of it runs on the CPU | Drop one size, or close other heavy apps. |
| Model won’t load | Free RAM | Pick the next size down. Leave a few GB free beyond the file size. |
| Very slow on Windows with an Nvidia card | Which backend is in use | Use the CUDA backend if your OGAD version offers it, or Vulkan. |
| Long, rambling answers | R1 reasoning | Ask a narrower question, or use Qwen for quick tasks. |
Need the full-size model?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash won’t fit on a normal computer. Off Grid AI Boost runs open models like DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen 3.8 on our own GPUs, with one API key for all of them, and we don’t store your prompts or train on them.
It’s one flat price from $4.99 a month for the first cohort ($9.99 regular), up to $99.99 ($199.99 regular), and that price holds for as long as you stay. Boost is a pre-order: your API key arrives in January 2027, and usage limits for each plan aren’t published yet. The Boost page says the same open models run in the Off Grid AI apps, and you choose where each one runs. Boost starts in January; pre-order to lock in half price.
FAQ
Can I run the full DeepSeek on my computer?
Not on a normal one. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has more than 500 billion parameters, which needs server-class memory. The R1 distills, from 1.5B to 32B, are official DeepSeek releases that fit home hardware.
Is DeepSeek private when it runs in Off Grid AI?
Yes. The model runs on your computer. OGAD has no account, and your chats stay on your disk. You need internet only for the app and model downloads.
Do I need an Nvidia GPU?
No. A Mac with Apple silicon runs these models well on its GPU, and other PCs use Vulkan or the CPU. An Nvidia card with enough VRAM is faster on Windows.
Is it free?
Yes. OGAD is free and open source, and DeepSeek’s weights are MIT licensed.
Is it as good as chat.deepseek.com?
No. The website runs DeepSeek’s full model in a data centre. Even the 32B on your computer is a small fraction of that size, so expect weaker answers on hard tasks.
Download OGAD, search deepseek r1, and ask it the next thing you’d have pasted into DeepSeek’s website.