Gemma 4 on Mac Mini: What Runs on 16GB–48GB M4

Short answer up front, then the full breakdown: yes, a Mac Mini runs Gemma 4 — the only real question is which of the five models, and that comes down to how much unified memory your specific config has.

Quick Answer

If you're buying today: get the Mac Mini M4 with 24GB unified memory and run Gemma 4 12B at Q4_0 (6.7 GB weights). It's the best fit currently available — the base 16GB M4 also runs 12B fine, but 24GB gives you real headroom for the KV cache and multitasking. If you already own a 16GB Mac Mini M4, you're not stuck with the small E4B model — 12B runs comfortably there too.

If you want the bigger models: the 26B A4B (MoE) and 31B dense models need a Mac Mini M4 Pro with 48GB. The 24GB M4 Pro config technically loads them, but with almost no headroom left for context — treat that as a "it'll boot" tier, not a daily-driver one.

The 31B model on a base Mac Mini? No. At minimum it needs 17.4 GB just for Q4_0 weights, which doesn't leave enough room on any 16GB or 24GB machine once macOS and the KV cache are accounted for.

Config × Model Matrix

Gemma 4 is a five-model family; the four relevant here (E2B is phone/tablet-only) are covered in depth in our hardware requirements guide. Here's how each fits a real Mac Mini configuration, based on Google's official Q4_0 weight sizes and current Apple pricing/specs (Apple):

Config	E4B (5 GB)	12B (6.7 GB)	26B A4B (15.6 GB)	31B (17.4 GB)
M4, 16GB — $799	Comfortable	Comfortable — the pick	No	No
M4, 24GB — ~$999	Comfortable	Comfortable, room to spare	Tight — loads, thin headroom	Not recommended — almost no headroom
M4, 32GB (spec max)†	Comfortable	Comfortable	Comfortable	Comfortable
M4 Pro, 24GB — $1,599	Comfortable	Comfortable	Tight	Not recommended
M4 Pro, 48GB — ~$1,999	Comfortable	Comfortable	Comfortable, room for long context	Comfortable
M4 Pro, 64GB (spec max)†	Comfortable	Comfortable	Comfortable, SFP8 possible	Comfortable, SFP8 (30.4 GB) fits

†As of mid-2026, Apple has pulled the 32GB M4 and 64GB M4 Pro configurations from its online store due to an ongoing memory chip shortage — both chips support that much RAM architecturally, but you currently can't order it new (MacRumors, MacRumors). If you're shopping used or the config returns, they're the comfortable tier for every model in the lineup.

Why "tight" instead of a hard yes/no: macOS and background processes typically reserve somewhere around 3–6 GB of unified memory before your model gets a byte, so a 24GB Mac Mini realistically has roughly 18–20 GB free, not the full 24. On a 16GB machine specifically, community estimates converge on roughly 10–13 GB actually available for the model and its context window (SolidAITech, PromptQuorum) — this isn't an Apple-published number, so treat it as an estimate, but it's the range worth planning around. A "tight" fit means the weights load but there's little left over for a long conversation's KV cache; "comfortable" means you have real headroom.

Which Model to Pick, by Budget

Own a 16GB Mac Mini M4 already? Run Gemma 4 12B. At 6.7 GB (Q4_0) it leaves roughly 4–6 GB of your ~10–13 GB usable pool for context and background apps — enough for normal chat and coding sessions. This is the single biggest change in the Gemma 4 lineup for Mac Mini owners: before the 12B model shipped in June 2026, a 16GB machine's best option was the smaller E4B. Now it isn't.

Buying new today, no bigger plans? The base 16GB M4 at $799 is genuinely enough for 12B. Don't pay for 24GB unless you specifically want headroom for longer contexts or plan to run other memory-hungry apps alongside it.

Want to try the 26B A4B MoE model? Go M4 Pro, 48GB if you can. The 24GB configs (either chip) will load it, but you're trading away most of your context window to do so — fine for short one-off prompts, frustrating for a real coding or research session.

Set on the full 31B dense model? You need 48GB, full stop, and that means the M4 Pro. Below that, the math doesn't work: 17.4 GB of Q4_0 weights plus the OS plus any meaningful KV cache exceeds what a 24GB machine has free.

E4B specifically? It runs comfortably on every configuration here, including the base 16GB M4. If your workload is simple Q&A, quick edits, or lightweight scripting, there's no reason to chase a bigger model just because your Mac can technically hold it.

Realistic Tokens/Sec

Apple hasn't published Gemma 4 speed numbers for the Mac Mini specifically, and we couldn't find a direct Gemma-4-on-Mac-Mini benchmark either — so everything below is either a labeled proxy from a comparably-sized model, or a bandwidth-based estimate. Treat the numbers as directional, not guaranteed.

• 12B on M4/M4 Pro: The closest real data point is Gemma 3 12B testing on M2/M3 MacBook Pro-class Apple Silicon, which reported 30–50 tokens/second (Kunal Ganglani) — a reasonable proxy for M4-class hardware running the similarly-sized Gemma 4 12B, since generation speed is dominated by memory bandwidth, not raw compute. Estimate, not a direct measurement.
• 26B A4B on M4 Pro: No direct benchmark exists for this exact combination. Reasoned from bandwidth: the M4 Pro's 273 GB/s (Apple) divided by the ~4B active parameters this MoE model reads per token (versus the full 26B it stores) suggests noticeably faster generation than a fully-dense model of similar total size — likely in the 25–45 tokens/second range on a 48GB M4 Pro. This is a reasoned estimate based on the MoE active-parameter principle, not a measured figure.
• 31B on M4 Pro: Because every one of its 31B parameters is active per token, expect this to be the slowest model in the lineup on Mac Mini hardware — roughly 8–15 tokens/second is a reasonable ballpark based on bandwidth math, well below the MoE model's throughput despite 31B being the "smaller" total parameter count.

The base M4's 120 GB/s bandwidth (Apple) is noticeably lower than the M4 Pro's 273 GB/s, so expect 12B and E4B to run meaningfully slower — still comfortably usable for chat, just don't expect M4 Pro speeds.

Setting It Up

Once you know which model fits your machine, actually running it takes about ten minutes:

1. Run Gemma 4 with Ollama — the fastest path if you're comfortable with a terminal. ollama pull gemma4:12b and you're generating text within minutes, with an OpenAI-compatible local API for free.
2. Run Gemma 4 in LM Studio — if you'd rather skip the command line, LM Studio gives you a GUI model browser that auto-suggests the right Gemma 4 size for your Mac's memory.

Both tools use Apple's Metal acceleration automatically on Apple Silicon — no manual GPU configuration needed.

FAQ

Can Gemma 4 run on a Mac Mini M4 with 16GB? Yes. The 16GB M4 comfortably runs both E4B (5 GB) and the new 12B model (6.7 GB) at Q4_0 quantization. It cannot comfortably run 26B A4B or 31B — those need 24GB+ realistically, and 48GB for a comfortable experience.

Can a Mac Mini run the 31B model? Only the M4 Pro configuration, and only with 48GB of unified memory (or the 64GB spec-max config, when available). The 31B dense model needs 17.4 GB just for Q4_0 weights, which leaves too little headroom on a 16GB or 24GB machine once you account for macOS overhead and the KV cache.

Is the Mac Mini M4 (base) enough for Gemma 4 26B A4B? Technically it can load at 24GB, but expect a very tight fit with minimal room for conversation history. If 26B A4B is your target model, budget for the M4 Pro with 48GB instead.

Does the Mac Mini M4 Pro run Gemma 4 faster than the base M4? Yes, meaningfully — the M4 Pro's 273 GB/s memory bandwidth versus the base M4's 120 GB/s translates fairly directly into faster token generation, since decoding on Apple Silicon is memory-bandwidth-bound rather than compute-bound.

What about the E2B model? E2B is Google's smallest Gemma 4 variant, built for phones, tablets, and IoT devices rather than desktop hardware. Any Mac Mini configuration handles it trivially, but there's little reason to run it over E4B or 12B on a machine with 16GB or more.

The Full Picture

This guide focuses on the Mac Mini specifically. For the complete breakdown across every Gemma 4 model — Mac laptops, NVIDIA GPUs, CPU-only setups, and what quantization actually means — see our Gemma 4 hardware requirements guide. If you're weighing a Mac Mini against other hardware entirely, our best mini PC for Gemma 4 guide compares it against budget Ryzen boxes and higher-end AMD options across three price tiers.