diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 4ac495a47..8c7e4cdf7 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -185,6 +185,14 @@ If you want to try out the latest bleeding-edge features and are okay with occas
 docker run -d -p 3000:8080 -v open-webui:/app/backend/data --name open-webui --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway --restart always ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:dev
 ```
 
+### Offline Mode
+
+If you are running Open WebUI in an offline environment, you can set the `HF_HUB_OFFLINE` environment variable to `1` to prevent attempts to download models from the internet.
+
+```bash
+export HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1
+```
+
 ## What's Next? 🌟
 
 Discover upcoming features on our roadmap in the [Open WebUI Documentation](https://docs.openwebui.com/roadmap/).
diff --git a/backend/open_webui/env.py b/backend/open_webui/env.py
index a5f848b62..5d79623d2 100644
--- a/backend/open_webui/env.py
+++ b/backend/open_webui/env.py
@@ -392,3 +392,6 @@ else:
 ####################################
 
 OFFLINE_MODE = os.environ.get("OFFLINE_MODE", "false").lower() == "true"
+
+if OFFLINE_MODE:
+    os.environ["HF_HUB_OFFLINE"] = "1"
diff --git a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
index 17f1438da..c95367e6c 100644
--- a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
+++ b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/utils.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ from langchain_core.documents import Document
 from open_webui.retrieval.vector.connector import VECTOR_DB_CLIENT
 from open_webui.utils.misc import get_last_user_message
 
-from open_webui.env import SRC_LOG_LEVELS
+from open_webui.env import SRC_LOG_LEVELS, OFFLINE_MODE
 
 log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 log.setLevel(SRC_LOG_LEVELS["RAG"])
@@ -375,6 +375,9 @@ def get_model_path(model: str, update_model: bool = False):
 
     local_files_only = not update_model
 
+    if OFFLINE_MODE:
+        local_files_only = True
+
     snapshot_kwargs = {
         "cache_dir": cache_dir,
         "local_files_only": local_files_only,