Installing takes two steps: the app (123 MB), then a one-time download of the default model and library inside the app (about 1 GB). The default setup needs internet once. Downloading additional models or packs also requires a connection. After the files you need are installed, airplane mode is fine.
What you need
- A 64-bit ARM Android phone.
- About 1.2 GB free for the default setup, or about 1.4 GB with the large Wikipedia pack. Bigger optional models need 2–5 GB each.
- Wi-Fi or data once, for the setup download.
BOAR is tested on a Xiaomi 2311DRK48G (MediaTek Dimensity 8300, 11.6 GB RAM, Android 16). The default model peaked at 1.8–3.1 GB of memory on that device. Phones with less RAM may need a smaller model; bigger models need more memory.
1. Download the APK
Get boar-v1.0.0-arm64.apk from the latest release on GitHub.
2. Check it (optional, recommended)
The release publishes a SHA-256 checksum next to the APK. On a computer, with both files in the same folder:
sha256sum -c boar-v1.0.0-arm64.apk.sha256
# boar-v1.0.0-arm64.apk: OKOn macOS, shasum -a 256 -c boar-v1.0.0-arm64.apk.sha256 does the same.
3. Install it
- On the phone: open the APK from your downloads. Android asks you to allow installs from that app (your browser or file manager) the first time.
- From a computer: with USB debugging on,
adb install boar-v1.0.0-arm64.apk. - Guided: clone the repo and run
make setup, then pick "Install BOAR on my phone". It downloads the release, checks the checksum and installs over USB.
4. The one-time setup
Open BOAR while you're online. The setup wizard asks for a language (English or Portuguese, for the menus), checks your phone's memory and storage, and offers four setups. They all download the same model; they differ in how much of the library comes with it.
| Setup | Library | Extra download |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 300 built-in topics | none |
| Standard | + 1,000 Wikipedia-derived topics | ~600 KB |
| Full | 5,300 topics in total | ~3 MB |
| Encyclopedia | Full + the introductions of Wikipedia's ~50,000 Vital Articles | ~164 MB |
Every setup downloads:
- Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct, the model that writes the answers (about 0.99 GB, Apache-2.0).
- bge-small-en-v1.5, a small model that finds passages by meaning (about 35 MB, MIT).
Each download shows its progress and gets a Retry button if it stalls. When they finish, Continue opens the chat.
5. Go offline
Turn on airplane mode and ask something. After setup, answering uses only resources stored on the phone.
You can change your setup later from Settings → App → Re-run Setup Wizard, without losing your conversations or documents.
Next
- Ask and check: how answers and sources work.
- Knowledge packs: add more to the library.
- Something went wrong? Troubleshooting.