ollama-rename

Interactive, safe "rename" for Ollama models. Under the hood it copies a model to a new name, then (optionally) deletes the original.

Features

• Alpha software: use at your own risk.
• Fuzzy-pick a model, get a clean suggested name, and copy it safely.
• Copy + optional delete (i.e., move) with running-model guard and --yes auto-confirm.
• New subcommands: list (pretty or --output json) and doctor (health/version check).
• JSON output for scripting via --output json; CLI fallback via --use-cli-fallback.
• Uses Ollama APIs (/api/copy, /api/delete, /api/tags, /api/ps, /api/version) with CLI fallbacks.
• Windows & Linux.

Requirements

• Ollama installed.
• Rust toolchain (for building from source).

Install (Windows)

Double-click install.bat or run:

.\install.bat

It builds the binary and places it in %USERPROFILE%\bin (adds to PATH if needed).

Install (Linux, from source)

cargo build --release
install -Dm755 target/release/ollama-rename ~/.local/bin/ollama-rename

Usage

Interactive (recommended):

# Launch the guided picker (safe by default)
ollama-rename
# Tip: Press Esc to cancel at any prompt.

Non-interactive rename (copy/move):

# copy
ollama-rename rename --from "hf.co/NikolayKozloff/NextCoder-14B-Q4_K_M-GGUF:Q4_K_M" --to "NextCoder"

# move (copy + delete original)
ollama-rename rename --from "qwen3-coder:latest" --to "qwen3-coder" --delete-original

# replace destination if it exists
ollama-rename rename --from "gpt-oss:latest" --to "gpt-oss" --overwrite

# JSON report for scripts
ollama-rename rename --from "gpt-oss:latest" --to "gpt-oss" --output json

Other commands:

# list models (marking running ones)
ollama-rename list
ollama-rename list --running-only --output json

# quick health/version check
ollama-rename doctor

Useful flags: --host <URL>, --use-cli-fallback, --force (delete even if loaded), --dry-run, --yes (auto-confirm), --output json.

Development

• Format: cargo fmt
• Test (with mocks): cargo test
• Release build: cargo build --release

Platform notes

• The Ollama CLI path can be overridden with OLLAMA_BIN (helps when Ollama is installed in a custom location or a path with spaces).