I Searched for the 4 GB AI File Secretly Stored by Chrome, and It Really Exists

Google Chrome browser has been caught secretly downloading and storing a 4 GB file on users’ laptops (PCs). The file is used to run the Gemini Nano artificial intelligence (AI) model without internet, or on-device. The spotlight is on the fact that the file is downloaded without permission or users’ knowledge. Although 4 GB seems “small”, it can be burdensome for PC owners with limited storage, such as 256 GB. Additionally, users with limited internet quotas will also feel the impact. KompasTekno tried to track down whether the mentioned file exists on our device or not. Our search on a Windows PC installed with Chrome version 147 on Friday (8/5/2026) revealed that the file could indeed be found. Inside that folder, there is a file named “weights.bin” which is indeed around 4 GB in size. However, not all laptop devices we tried have this file. There are several PCs with Windows 11 operating system that do not have this file. Based on our search on other Windows PCs with Chrome version 148 (newer), we did not find the “OptGuideOnDeviceModel” folder containing the aforementioned weights.bin file. It is not known for certain why the weights.bin file can appear on some Windows PCs but not on others. Besides Windows PCs, similar files are reportedly found on PCs with Linux operating systems up to macOS. We have not tried searching for the file via Linux. Meanwhile, on macOS, we did not find the mentioned file. On the Macbook, we tried searching for the above weights.bin file through the directory “/Users//Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default”. We learned about this directory after accessing the “Chrome://version” page in the Google Chrome application. There, there is a “Profile Path” column that stores data related to Chrome usage on the device.