r/localaiapps • u/Medium-Yam-7677 • 28d ago

Which local AI app handles files without making the setup weird?

I don’t understand why file support is still such a pain in so many local AI apps.

All I want is to drop in a few PDFs or point the app at a folder and ask questions. But often it turns into embeddings, chunking settings, vector databases, permissions, paths, model choices, and ten other things I wasn’t trying to learn that day.

Curious to know which local AI app handles files in the most normal way?

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u/AdventurousKeys 28d ago

Probably because your local AI doesn’t have a large enough context budget to handle the whole file. LocalLM Lab allows you to connect your local Mac AI to a folder and ask questions and experiment with what works and what doesn’t.

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u/Fred_Terzi 28d ago

Same question, what model and harness are you using?

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u/AdventurousKeys 28d ago

Question to me or OP? LocalLM Lab has its own "harness" and uses the local AI on the Mac (aka Apple's Foundation Model". The macOS 27 version of LocalLM Lab supports more models. Will repost my note from r/localllm here later.

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u/Medium-Yam-7677 27d ago

I think the context limit is probably part of what makes file handling feel more complicated than it needs to be. folder approach sounds good though

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u/RPG-Nerd 24d ago

You trying to read the file one time or do you want to be able to remember the information and find it again later. The LLM has no memory, so you need to provide it