Offline AI on your phone: the 5-minute setup guide

+ 10 prompts that work with no internet

Run a real AI model on your phone in airplane mode, with no internet and nothing sent to the cloud. Here's exactly what I used.

1Install (free)

2Download a model on Wi-Fi, before you go offline

Open AI Chat → pick a model → Download. (On my iPhone it didn't ask me to sign in.) Sizes as shown in the app on my iPhone:

ModelSizePick it if…
Gemma-3n-E4B-it
what I used in the video		4.27 GByou want photo questions + good answers
Gemma-4-E2B-it
"Best overall" in the app		2.59 GByou want the newest, lighter model
Gemma-4-E4B-it3.66 GByou have the space and want the best Gemma 4 quality
Gemma-3n-E2B-it3.04 GBolder phone, still multimodal
Gemma3-1B-IT584.4 MBlow storage, text only, fastest

Keep a few GB of free storage. Speed depends on your phone.

3The airplane test

  1. Control Center → Airplane mode ON, and make sure Wi-Fi is OFF too (on iPhone, Wi-Fi can stay on in airplane mode).
  2. AI Chat → + → Photo library or Camera → add a photo.
  3. Ask: "Where was this photo taken?"
  4. Look at the stats bar: tok/s = speed, TTFT = time to first word, RAM = memory used.

Mine: 21.1 tok/s, TTFT 2.78 s, 1.71 GB RAM, answer in 5.1 s.

410 prompts that work fully offline

  1. "Where was this photo taken? Name the landmark." (photo)
  2. "What is this and how do I use it?" (photo of a gadget, plant, dish)
  3. "Translate this sign/menu into English and explain the dishes." (photo)
  4. "Read this receipt and split it between 3 people." (photo)
  5. "Summarise this text in 5 bullet points:" (paste text)
  6. "Rewrite this message to sound polite and short:"
  7. "Give me a 10-minute bodyweight workout with no equipment."
  8. "Make a packing list for 3 days in a hot country."
  9. "Explain [topic] like I'm 12, then quiz me with 3 questions."
  10. "I'm on a flight for 6 hours. Plan how I use the time."

5Know the limits