Ollama: bind: address already in use (port 11434)

Error: listen tcp 127.0.0.1:11434: bind: address already in use

By Fredoline Eruo · Last verified Jun 12, 2026

Cause

Ollama tries to bind port 11434 on startup, but another process (almost always a previous Ollama instance that didn't shut down cleanly) already has it. On Windows the Ollama service often runs in the background even when the GUI is closed.

Solution

On macOS / Linux:

# Find and kill the existing Ollama process
lsof -i :11434
kill -9 <PID>
ollama serve

On Windows:

# Find which process owns port 11434
netstat -ano | findstr :11434
# Kill it (last column is the PID)
taskkill /F /PID <PID>

Or, if you have admin rights, restart the Ollama service:

Stop-Service -Name "Ollama"
Start-Service -Name "Ollama"

Run on a different port if you need both instances (rare):

OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11500 ollama serve

Related errors

Did this fix it?

If your case was different, email Contact support with what you saw and we'll update the page. If it worked but took different commands on your platform, we want to know that too.