Keep-Alive and Memory Control

When a model finishes responding, Ollama doesn't unload it. It keeps the weights in memory for a while in case another request comes in. This is the keep-alive timer, and it's why the model you "stopped" using is still showing up in ollama ps minutes later.

The default is 5 minutes of inactivity. Each request resets the clock. After the timer expires, the server unloads the model and frees the memory.

You can see the countdown in the UNTIL