Support

Requirements

Silo Studio needs macOS 26 or later, Apple silicon. There is no Intel version and no earlier-macOS version, and neither is coming: the app generates images with Apple’s MLX, which runs on Apple silicon, and its interface uses macOS 26 material that older releases cannot draw.

Getting started

I opened the app and there are no models

That is expected — the app ships with no model weights at all. The first launch offers a short list of open-weight models and downloads only the ones you leave ticked; if you unticked everything, or closed setup early, open Models and download one from there. The recommended starting point is Z-Image Turbo, about 3.6 GB, which needs no account and produces an image in roughly ten seconds.

Why does one of the models ask for a Hugging Face token?

A few models — FLUX.1 dev among them — are gated by their publisher, which means Hugging Face will only serve them to an account that has accepted their licence. For those, create a free Hugging Face account, accept the licence on the model’s page, generate a read token and paste it into Settings › General. The token is stored in your macOS Keychain and is only ever sent to Hugging Face.

None of the models offered during setup are gated, so you never need a token to use the app.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Once a model is downloaded, generating needs no network connection at all. The only things that need the internet are downloading models and searching for styles.

Files and disk space

Where are my images and models kept?

In the app’s own folder inside your Library. Because the app is sandboxed, that is:

~/Library/Containers/co.tduarte.Silo/Data/Library/Application Support/Silo/

Images are under images/, models under models/, and everything else the app remembers is in silo.db beside them. In the Finder, use Go › Go to Folder… and paste that path.

The app is using a lot of disk space

Almost all of it will be model weights — a single model can be several gigabytes, and a large one can be twenty. Open Models, find one you are not using and delete it; the space comes back immediately. Your images are unaffected by deleting a model.

Can I use models I already have?

Yes — import the folder from inside the app and it is copied into the app’s library. The copy is not a preference; the app is sandboxed, so the part of it that loads weights cannot read a folder elsewhere on your disk. Once imported, the app remembers where it came from, so scanning that folder again will tell you it is already in your library instead of offering the copy a second time.

How do I uninstall it?

Drag the app to the Trash. To remove your library as well — every image, model and setting — delete the folder at the path above. That is everything; nothing is stored anywhere else and nothing is left on a server.

Content and safety

One of my images is blurred. Why, and how do I see it?

Finished images are checked on your Mac by Apple’s Sensitive Content Analysis framework. If it flags one, the app covers it behind a Show control rather than blocking it — press Show to reveal it. Nothing is deleted, nothing is reported anywhere, and every export still works. You can turn the screening off in Settings › General.

The setting says macOS is not offering this

Apple’s analyzer only runs when the system’s own preference is on, so with it off the app has nothing to ask. Turn on Sensitive Content Warning in System Settings › Privacy & Security, and the app’s screening starts working again.

My prompt was refused

The app refuses one category of prompt: sexual imagery of minors. The check runs before anything is queued and there is no setting to turn it off. Nothing else is filtered — the models are unfiltered open weights, which is why the app is rated 18+.

If an ordinary prompt was refused, that is a bug worth reporting, and I would like to see it. Email me the exact wording.

When something goes wrong

Generation failed, or the app seems stuck

Worth trying, in this order:

1. Quit and reopen the app — the engine restarts with it.
2. Try a different model. A failure that follows one model around is a problem with that download, and deleting and re-downloading it fixes most of those.
3. Check free disk space. Model loading needs room, and a nearly full disk fails in ways that look like something else.

If it still fails, email me with the model name and the error text shown on the card.

Reporting a bug

Send it to support@siloformac.com. The most useful report says what you expected, what happened instead, and whether it happens every time. Screenshots help; so does the version number from Silo Studio › About.

There is no automatic crash reporting and no analytics in the app, so a problem I have not been told about is one I do not know exists.