Is there any way I can download the pre-trained models available in PyTorch to a specific path?

Question

I am referring to the models that can be found here: https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/torchvision/models.html#torchvision-models

Answer 1

As, @dennlinger mentioned in his answer : torch.utils.model_zoo, is being internally called when you load a pre-trained model.

More specifically, the method: torch.utils.model_zoo.load_url() is being called every time a pre-trained model is loaded. The documentation for the same, mentions:

The default value of model_dir is $TORCH_HOME/models where $TORCH_HOME defaults to ~/.torch.

The default directory can be overridden with the $TORCH_HOME environment variable.

This can be done as follows:

import torch 
import torchvision
import os

# Suppose you are trying to load pre-trained resnet model in directory- models\resnet

os.environ['TORCH_HOME'] = 'models\\resnet' #setting the environment variable
resnet = torchvision.models.resnet18(pretrained=True)

I came across the above solution by raising an issue in the PyTorch's GitHub repository: https://github.com/pytorch/vision/issues/616

This led to an improvement in the documentation i.e. the solution mentioned above.