Outlier Lite on Mac mini M2: needs the higher-RAM SKU. Minimum unified memory required: 12 GB. Disk size: 5.04 GB. Default context window: 8K tokens on Free, 32K on Pro. On Mac mini M2 the Outlier Lite bandwidth-scaled estimate is ~6.7 tok/s [estimated from family-bandwidth ratio]; derivation: 53.4 tok/s on M1 Ultra × (100 / 800) bus ratio for the Apple M2. Treat as a first-order projection, the Outlier Lite number on this 2023 machine has not been formally measured. The only real check of this method, Nano on a 16 GB M4 Air, ran about 3× faster than the 10.8 tok/s it projects, so read the figure as conservative.
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The pairing under examination is Outlier Lite (5.04 GB MLX 4-bit, Qwen3.5-9B base, 8K context on Free (32K on Pro), 12 GB unified memory minimum) on a Mac mini M2 (Apple M2, 8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, 8, 16 or 24 GB unified memory, 100 GB/s, 2023). Outlier loads this tier as one mlx_lm process inside the bundled FastAPI sidecar. Apple Silicon decode on dense 4-bit weights is bandwidth-bound, so the figure on this exact Mac mini M2 scales roughly as the ratio 100 / 800 = 0.12× of the published M1 Ultra number.
The Mac mini M2 is a desktop with active cooling, which is the configuration that comes closest to holding the figure above through a sustained back-and-forth session. There is no battery to trade against and no lap to keep cool, so the limit on Outlier Lite here is the 100 GB/s memory bus rather than the thermal envelope. This is the shape of machine to pick if the job runs unattended.
The tier catalog lists a peak generation footprint of about 5.5 GB for Outlier Lite, for a short chat; a long agent session needs more. The rule of thumb is to leave roughly 4 GB for the OS and one open browser tab, so across the Mac mini M2 memory options that leaves 8 GB → 1.5 GB short; 16 GB → 6.5 GB free; 24 GB → 14.5 GB free. On Mac mini M2 the Outlier Lite bandwidth-scaled estimate is ~6.7 tok/s [estimated from family-bandwidth ratio]; derivation: 53.4 tok/s on M1 Ultra × (100 / 800) bus ratio for the Apple M2. Treat as a first-order projection, the Outlier Lite number on this 2023 machine has not been formally measured. The only real check of this method, Nano on a 16 GB M4 Air, ran about 3× faster than the 10.8 tok/s it projects, so read the figure as conservative.
The 2023 Mac mini M2 ships with 8, 16 or 24 GB of unified memory. The 8 GB base model is below the 12 GB Outlier Lite minimum, so you need the 16 GB configuration or larger. Step-by-step install instructions live on the install guide; the part that varies for this Apple M2 machine is that the 5.04 GB pull from Outlier-Ai/Outlier-Lite-9B-MLX-4bit over HTTPS lands in ~/Library/Application Support/Outlier/models/lite/ and download time is bandwidth-limited by the network, not by the 8-core Apple M2 CPU.
The Outlier Lite tier runs at 8K context on Free; on Pro it defaults to 32K and caps at 128K. KV cache scales linearly with context length on dense models, so longer contexts trade headroom for capacity. On a 16 GB Mac mini M2, the default context is the safe starting point.
5.04 GB on disk against the 16 GB Mac mini M2 (the smallest configuration that meets the 12 GB minimum) means the weights alone take about 32% of its memory.
For lighter-weight work on this Apple M2, the Nano tier is the next step down and runs visibly faster. For heavier work, the Quick or Core tier is the next step up; check that the memory configuration you have (8, 16 or 24 GB on this Mac) can fit its weights before installing. The unified-memory explainer works the bandwidth math out, and the bandwidth ratio for Mac mini M2 is 0.12× M1 Ultra reference.
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