diff --git a/llms/hf_llm/convert.py b/llms/hf_llm/convert.py
index f93d01c3..4a899ab8 100644
--- a/llms/hf_llm/convert.py
+++ b/llms/hf_llm/convert.py
@@ -14,11 +14,13 @@ from mlx.utils import tree_flatten
 from models import Model, ModelArgs
 
 
-def fetch_from_hub(hf_path: str):
-    model_path = snapshot_download(
-        repo_id=hf_path,
-        allow_patterns=["*.json", "*.safetensors", "tokenizer.model"],
-    )
+def fetch_from_hub(model_path: str, local: bool):
+    if not local:
+        model_path = snapshot_download(
+            repo_id=model_path,
+            allow_patterns=["*.json", "*.safetensors", "tokenizer.model"],
+        )
+
     weight_files = glob.glob(f"{model_path}/*.safetensors")
     if len(weight_files) == 0:
         raise FileNotFoundError("No safetensors found in {}".format(model_path))
@@ -149,11 +151,18 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
         type=str,
         default=None,
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "-l",
+        "--local",
+        action="store_true",
+        help="Whether the hf-path points to a local filesystem.",
+        default=False,
+    )
 
     args = parser.parse_args()
 
     print("[INFO] Loading")
-    weights, config, tokenizer = fetch_from_hub(args.hf_path)
+    weights, config, tokenizer = fetch_from_hub(args.hf_path, args.local)
 
     dtype = mx.float16 if args.quantize else getattr(mx, args.dtype)
     weights = {k: v.astype(dtype) for k, v in weights.items()}
@@ -170,5 +179,5 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
     with open(mlx_path / "config.json", "w") as fid:
         json.dump(config, fid, indent=4)
 
-    if args.upload_name is not None:
+    if args.upload_name is not None and not args.local:
         upload_to_hub(mlx_path, args.upload_name, args.hf_path)