diff --git a/mlx/dtype.cpp b/mlx/dtype.cpp
index 10efb88f9..5eaf7c90e 100644
--- a/mlx/dtype.cpp
+++ b/mlx/dtype.cpp
@@ -81,16 +81,6 @@ constexpr Dtype::Category type_to_category[num_types] = {
 
 // clang-format on
 
-inline bool is_big_endian() {
-  union ByteOrder {
-    int32_t i;
-    uint8_t c[4];
-  };
-  ByteOrder b = {0x01234567};
-
-  return b.c[0] == 0x01;
-}
-
 } // namespace
 
 Dtype promote_types(const Dtype& t1, const Dtype& t2) {
diff --git a/mlx/fft.h b/mlx/fft.h
index dbcc777fe..06298f821 100644
--- a/mlx/fft.h
+++ b/mlx/fft.h
@@ -6,12 +6,10 @@
 
 #include "array.h"
 #include "device.h"
-#include "stream.h"
+#include "utils.h"
 
 namespace mlx::core::fft {
 
-using StreamOrDevice = std::variant<std::monostate, Stream, Device>;
-
 /** Compute the n-dimensional Fourier Transform. */
 array fftn(
     const array& a,
diff --git a/mlx/io/load.cpp b/mlx/io/load.cpp
index 3d27ab04e..c9c618fe9 100644
--- a/mlx/io/load.cpp
+++ b/mlx/io/load.cpp
@@ -26,16 +26,6 @@ constexpr uint8_t MAGIC[] = {
     0x59,
 };
 
-inline bool is_big_endian_() {
-  union ByteOrder {
-    int32_t i;
-    uint8_t c[4];
-  };
-  ByteOrder b = {0x01234567};
-
-  return b.c[0] == 0x01;
-}
-
 } // namespace
 
 /** Save array to out stream in .npy format */
@@ -94,7 +84,7 @@ void save(std::shared_ptr<io::Writer> out_stream, array a) {
     uint16_t v1_header_len = header.tellp();
     const char* len_bytes = reinterpret_cast<const char*>(&v1_header_len);
 
-    if (!is_big_endian_()) {
+    if (!is_big_endian()) {
       magic_ver_len.write(len_bytes, 2);
     } else {
       magic_ver_len.write(len_bytes + 1, 1);
@@ -106,7 +96,7 @@ void save(std::shared_ptr<io::Writer> out_stream, array a) {
     uint32_t v2_header_len = header.tellp();
     const char* len_bytes = reinterpret_cast<const char*>(&v2_header_len);
 
-    if (!is_big_endian_()) {
+    if (!is_big_endian()) {
       magic_ver_len.write(len_bytes, 4);
     } else {
       magic_ver_len.write(len_bytes + 3, 1);
@@ -219,7 +209,7 @@ array load(std::shared_ptr<io::Reader> in_stream, StreamOrDevice s) {
   // Build primitive
 
   size_t offset = 8 + header_len_size + header.length();
-  bool swap_endianness = read_is_big_endian != is_big_endian_();
+  bool swap_endianness = read_is_big_endian != is_big_endian();
 
   if (col_contiguous) {
     std::reverse(shape.begin(), shape.end());
diff --git a/mlx/utils.h b/mlx/utils.h
index 1fe7edc05..a86db4009 100644
--- a/mlx/utils.h
+++ b/mlx/utils.h
@@ -84,6 +84,16 @@ int check_shape_dim(const T dim) {
   return static_cast<int>(dim);
 }
 
+inline bool is_big_endian() {
+  union ByteOrder {
+    int32_t i;
+    uint8_t c[4];
+  };
+  ByteOrder b = {0x01234567};
+
+  return b.c[0] == 0x01;
+}
+
 /**
  * Returns the axis normalized to be in the range [0, ndim).
  * Based on numpy's normalize_axis_index. See