You can now (since the switch to git models explained here: [Announcement] Model Versioning: Upcoming changes to the model hub) just git clone a model to your laptop and make from_pretrained
point to it:
# In a google colab install git-lfs
!sudo apt-get install git-lfs
!git lfs install
# Then
!git clone https://huggingface.co/ORGANIZATION_OR_USER/MODEL_NAME
from transformers import AutoModel
model = AutoModel.from_pretrained('./MODEL_NAME')
For instance:
# In a google colab install git-lfs
!sudo apt-get install git-lfs
!git lfs install
# Then
!git clone https://huggingface.co/facebook/bart-base
from transformers import AutoModel
model = AutoModel.from_pretrained('./bart-base')
cc @julien-c for confirmation