Show HN: Local LLM Notepad – run a GPT-style model from a USB stick

6 hours ago 1

Plug a USB drive and run a modern LLM on any PC locally with a double‑click.

No installation, no internet, no API, no Cloud computing, no GPU, no admin rights required.

Local LLM Notepad is an open-source, offline plug-and-play app for running local large-language models. Drop the single bundled .exe onto a USB stick, walk up to any computer, and start chatting, brainstorming, or drafting documents.

Portable One‑File Build

combined_gif

🔌 Portable

Drop the one‑file EXE and your .gguf model onto a flash drive; run on any Windows PC without admin rights.

🪶 Clean UI

Two‑pane layout: type prompts below, watch token‑streamed answers above—no extra chrome.

🔍 Source‑word under‑lining

Every word or number you wrote in your prompt is automatically bold‑underlined in the model’s reply. Ctrl+left click on them to view them in a separate window. Handy for fact‑checking summaries, tables, or data extractions.

💾 Save/Load chats

One‑click JSON export keeps conversations with the model portable alongside the EXE.

⚡ Llama.cpp inside

CPU‑only by default for max compatibility.

🎹 Hot‑keys

Ctrl + S to send, Ctrl + Z to stop, Ctrl + F to find, Ctrl + X to clear chat history, Ctrl + Mouse‑Wheel zoom, etc.

Download Local_LLM_Notepad-portable.exe from the Releases page.

Copy the EXE and a compatible GGUF model (e.g. gemma-3-1b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf) onto your USB.

Double‑click the EXE on any Windows computer. First launch caches the model into RAM; subsequent prompts stream instantly.

Need another model? Use File ▸ Select Model… and point to a different GGUF.

File Link Notes
Local_LLM_Notepad-portable.exe Direct download (v1.0.1) ~45 MB, contains everything needed to run LLM on Windows computer
gemma-3-1b-it-Q4_K_M.gguf Hugging Face Fast CPU model (~0.8 GB) we recommend for first-time users. Achieves ~20 tokens/second on an i7-10750H CPU HF_screenshot
Icon (optional) Notepad icon PNG Save as Icon.png next to the EXE and it will be used automatically

Portable One‑File Build

Automated Source Highlighting (Ctrl + click)

Every word, number you used in the prompt is bold‑underlined in the LLM answer.

Ctrl + click any under‑lined word to open a side window with every single prompt that contained it—great for tracing sources.

bold_text_demo

Ctrl + S to Send text to LLM

CtrlS

Ctrl + Z to stop LLM generation

CtrlZ

Ctrl + F to find in chat history

CtrlF

Ctrl + X to clear chat history

CtrlX

Ctrl + P to edit system prompt anytime

change_syst_prompt

File ▸ Save/Load chat history

Load_chat

$ git clone https://github.com/runzhouye/Local_LLM_Notepad.git

$ cd Local_LLM_Notepad

2. Create env & install deps

$ python -m venv .venv && ..venv\Scripts\activate

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

$ pyinstaller --onefile --noconsole --additional-hooks-dir=. main.py

4. Grab dist/Local_LLM_Notepad.exe (≈45 MB)

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