Fix stuck or incomplete Hugging Face downloads

A hf download that stalled or died does not need to start over. Re-run the exact same command: finished files are skipped from the cache and the interrupted file continues from its .incomplete partial. If a partial is corrupt, prune it and pull again.

1. Re-run the same command

hf download bartowski/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-GGUF Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf

Completed files come straight from the cache and the stalled transfer picks up where it stopped, so nothing is fetched twice.

2. Clear broken partials

hf cache ls

Shows cached repos and flags leftover incomplete downloads with a hint.

hf cache prune

Deletes unreferenced revisions and every leftover .incomplete partial, which clears a corrupt half-file so the next download is clean (hf cache rm never touches partials).

3. Speed it up with hf_xet

pip install -U huggingface_hub

Installs hf_xet alongside the library, which enables chunked, resumable transfers automatically — no flag needed.

The older hf_transfer package and its HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER=1 switch are now deprecated; use hf_xet instead.

4. Check disk and cache location

export HF_HOME=/mnt/big/hf

Moves the whole cache to another drive; the default is ~/.cache/huggingface/hub, which fills the home partition fast. See where the Hugging Face cache lives to confirm the path first.

Verify it worked

hf cache verify bartowski/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-GGUF

Checks the cached files against the Hub checksums and reports any mismatch. If it fails:

Download keeps timing out — raise the timeout from its default of 10 seconds and re-run: export HF_HUB_DOWNLOAD_TIMEOUT=30.
401 or “gated repo” — accept the licence and log in first; see access gated models.
No space left on device — run hf cache prune, or point HF_HOME at a larger disk.

Next: the full hf download workflow. Cache internals: Hugging Face’s cache guide.