diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 36a2078e4c9fa..4720e1f1a2955 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -58,6 +58,12 @@ if (MSVC)
     add_compile_options("$<$<COMPILE_LANGUAGE:CXX>:/bigobj>")
 endif()
 
+if (CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME STREQUAL "iOS")
+    set(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL_DEFAULT OFF)
+else()
+    set(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL_DEFAULT ${LLAMA_STANDALONE})
+endif()
+
 #
 # option list
 #
@@ -82,6 +88,7 @@ option(LLAMA_BUILD_TESTS    "llama: build tests"          ${LLAMA_STANDALONE})
 option(LLAMA_BUILD_TOOLS    "llama: build tools"          ${LLAMA_STANDALONE})
 option(LLAMA_BUILD_EXAMPLES "llama: build examples"       ${LLAMA_STANDALONE})
 option(LLAMA_BUILD_SERVER   "llama: build server example" ${LLAMA_STANDALONE})
+option(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL  "llama: install tools"        ${LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL_DEFAULT})
 
 # 3rd party libs
 option(LLAMA_CURL       "llama: use libcurl to download model from an URL" ON)
diff --git a/tools/batched-bench/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/batched-bench/CMakeLists.txt
index 68ad707f32c98..4a46b57a52811 100644
--- a/tools/batched-bench/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/batched-bench/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-batched-bench)
 add_executable(${TARGET} batched-bench.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/cvector-generator/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/cvector-generator/CMakeLists.txt
index 49ad9561c82ea..baeb4d00c142a 100644
--- a/tools/cvector-generator/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/cvector-generator/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-cvector-generator)
 add_executable(${TARGET} cvector-generator.cpp pca.hpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/export-lora/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/export-lora/CMakeLists.txt
index 310455787a7ef..cddfa77f02b00 100644
--- a/tools/export-lora/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/export-lora/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-export-lora)
 add_executable(${TARGET} export-lora.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/gguf-split/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/gguf-split/CMakeLists.txt
index c407e2f0af44a..9b2125087c5ee 100644
--- a/tools/gguf-split/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/gguf-split/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-gguf-split)
 add_executable(${TARGET} gguf-split.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/imatrix/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/imatrix/CMakeLists.txt
index 412696c47c31c..22f2fe5fdb828 100644
--- a/tools/imatrix/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/imatrix/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-imatrix)
 add_executable(${TARGET} imatrix.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/llama-bench/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/llama-bench/CMakeLists.txt
index 17e3b9b87bae4..b8543a9692f5d 100644
--- a/tools/llama-bench/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/llama-bench/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-bench)
 add_executable(${TARGET} llama-bench.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/main/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/main/CMakeLists.txt
index af3d9150f8640..8f8e9d444cfc8 100644
--- a/tools/main/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/main/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-cli)
 add_executable(${TARGET} main.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/mtmd/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/mtmd/CMakeLists.txt
index 097948856038e..2381012a0d02f 100644
--- a/tools/mtmd/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/mtmd/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ add_executable(llama-qwen2vl-cli  deprecation-warning.cpp)
 set(TARGET llama-mtmd-cli)
 add_executable         (${TARGET} mtmd-cli.cpp)
 set_target_properties  (${TARGET} PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME llama-mtmd-cli)
-if(NOT CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME STREQUAL "iOS")
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
     install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 endif()
 target_link_libraries  (${TARGET} PRIVATE common mtmd Threads::Threads)
diff --git a/tools/perplexity/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/perplexity/CMakeLists.txt
index 3e68640933afb..12b28b2be4320 100644
--- a/tools/perplexity/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/perplexity/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-perplexity)
 add_executable(${TARGET} perplexity.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/quantize/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/quantize/CMakeLists.txt
index 47e5cbe30cfe3..bd9ddbd67dac7 100644
--- a/tools/quantize/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/quantize/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 set(TARGET llama-quantize)
 add_executable(${TARGET} quantize.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_include_directories(${TARGET} PRIVATE ../../common)
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
diff --git a/tools/run/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/run/CMakeLists.txt
index d0189596980eb..e52294ccc0ef9 100644
--- a/tools/run/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/run/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@ if (LLAMA_CURL)
     set(LLAMA_RUN_EXTRA_LIBS ${LLAMA_RUN_EXTRA_LIBS} ${CURL_LIBRARIES})
 endif ()
 
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT} ${LLAMA_RUN_EXTRA_LIBS})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
diff --git a/tools/tokenize/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/tokenize/CMakeLists.txt
index 1690b53e5d52b..feed9a10622e8 100644
--- a/tools/tokenize/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/tokenize/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 set(TARGET llama-tokenize)
 add_executable(${TARGET} tokenize.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE common llama ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
diff --git a/tools/tts/CMakeLists.txt b/tools/tts/CMakeLists.txt
index c72bd814c3b31..76320d4c2d6ac 100644
--- a/tools/tts/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/tools/tts/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 set(TARGET llama-tts)
 add_executable(${TARGET} tts.cpp)
-install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
 target_link_libraries(${TARGET} PRIVATE llama common ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
 target_compile_features(${TARGET} PRIVATE cxx_std_17)
+
+if(LLAMA_TOOLS_INSTALL)
+    install(TARGETS ${TARGET} RUNTIME)
+endif()