diff --git a/candle-examples/Cargo.toml b/candle-examples/Cargo.toml
index 8ae828bd..bbafca0b 100644
--- a/candle-examples/Cargo.toml
+++ b/candle-examples/Cargo.toml
@@ -17,8 +17,11 @@ candle-nn = { path = "../candle-nn", version = "0.3.2" }
 candle-transformers = { path = "../candle-transformers", version = "0.3.2" }
 candle-flash-attn = { path = "../candle-flash-attn", version = "0.3.2", optional = true }
 candle-onnx = { path = "../candle-onnx", version = "0.3.2", optional = true }
+
+csv = "1.3.0"
 cudarc = { workspace = true, optional = true }
 half = { workspace = true, optional = true }
+hf-hub = { workspace = true, features=["tokio"]}
 image = { workspace = true }
 intel-mkl-src = { workspace = true, optional = true }
 num-traits = { workspace = true }
@@ -28,13 +31,11 @@ safetensors = { workspace = true }
 serde = { workspace = true }
 serde_json = { workspace = true }
 tokenizers = { workspace = true, features = ["onig"] }
-csv = "1.3.0"
 
 [dev-dependencies]
 anyhow = { workspace = true }
 byteorder = { workspace = true }
 clap = { workspace = true }
-hf-hub = { workspace = true, features=["tokio"]}
 imageproc = { workspace = true }
 memmap2 = { workspace = true }
 rand = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/candle-examples/examples/mistral/main.rs b/candle-examples/examples/mistral/main.rs
index 2b31142e..5ed5e5cb 100644
--- a/candle-examples/examples/mistral/main.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/examples/mistral/main.rs
@@ -235,10 +235,7 @@ fn main() -> Result<()> {
             if args.quantized {
                 vec![repo.get("model-q4k.gguf")?]
             } else {
-                vec![
-                    repo.get("model-00001-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-                    repo.get("model-00002-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-                ]
+                candle_examples::hub_load_safetensors(&repo, "model.safetensors.index.json")?
             }
         }
     };
diff --git a/candle-examples/examples/mixtral/main.rs b/candle-examples/examples/mixtral/main.rs
index fcde03c1..1b1a4b36 100644
--- a/candle-examples/examples/mixtral/main.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/examples/mixtral/main.rs
@@ -209,29 +209,7 @@ fn main() -> Result<()> {
             .split(',')
             .map(std::path::PathBuf::from)
             .collect::<Vec<_>>(),
-        None => {
-            vec![
-                repo.get("model-00001-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00002-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00003-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00004-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00005-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00006-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00007-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00008-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00009-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00010-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00011-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00012-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00013-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00014-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00015-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00016-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00017-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00018-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00019-of-00019.safetensors")?,
-            ]
-        }
+        None => candle_examples::hub_load_safetensors(&repo, "model.safetensors.index.json")?,
     };
     println!("retrieved the files in {:?}", start.elapsed());
     let tokenizer = Tokenizer::from_file(tokenizer_filename).map_err(E::msg)?;
diff --git a/candle-examples/examples/phi/main.rs b/candle-examples/examples/phi/main.rs
index 3574b1f2..c529867b 100644
--- a/candle-examples/examples/phi/main.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/examples/phi/main.rs
@@ -278,10 +278,10 @@ fn main() -> Result<()> {
             } else {
                 match args.model {
                     WhichModel::V1 | WhichModel::V1_5 => vec![repo.get("model.safetensors")?],
-                    WhichModel::V2 => vec![
-                        repo.get("model-00001-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-                        repo.get("model-00002-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-                    ],
+                    WhichModel::V2 => candle_examples::hub_load_safetensors(
+                        &repo,
+                        "model.safetensors.index.json",
+                    )?,
                     WhichModel::PuffinPhiV2 => vec![repo.get("model-puffin-phi-v2.safetensors")?],
                     WhichModel::PhiHermes => vec![repo.get("model-phi-hermes-1_3B.safetensors")?],
                 }
diff --git a/candle-examples/examples/t5/main.rs b/candle-examples/examples/t5/main.rs
index 6a446615..8ef108b6 100644
--- a/candle-examples/examples/t5/main.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/examples/t5/main.rs
@@ -96,25 +96,9 @@ impl T5ModelBuilder {
         let api = api.repo(repo);
         let config_filename = api.get("config.json")?;
         let tokenizer_filename = api.get("tokenizer.json")?;
-        let weights_filename = if model_id == "google/flan-t5-xxl" {
-            vec![
-                api.get("model-00001-of-00005.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00002-of-00005.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00003-of-00005.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00004-of-00005.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00005-of-00005.safetensors")?,
-            ]
-        } else if model_id == "google/flan-ul2" {
-            vec![
-                api.get("model-00001-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00002-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00003-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00004-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00005-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00006-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00007-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-                api.get("model-00008-of-00008.safetensors")?,
-            ]
+        let weights_filename = if model_id == "google/flan-t5-xxl" || model_id == "google/flan-ul2"
+        {
+            candle_examples::hub_load_safetensors(&api, "model.safetensors.index.json")?
         } else {
             vec![api.get("model.safetensors")?]
         };
diff --git a/candle-examples/examples/yi/main.rs b/candle-examples/examples/yi/main.rs
index a7184db9..e4cbfc6f 100644
--- a/candle-examples/examples/yi/main.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/examples/yi/main.rs
@@ -218,21 +218,7 @@ fn main() -> Result<()> {
             .split(',')
             .map(std::path::PathBuf::from)
             .collect::<Vec<_>>(),
-        None => match args.which {
-            Which::L6b => vec![
-                repo.get("model-00001-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00002-of-00002.safetensors")?,
-            ],
-            Which::L34b => vec![
-                repo.get("model-00001-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00002-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00003-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00004-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00005-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00006-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-                repo.get("model-00007-of-00007.safetensors")?,
-            ],
-        },
+        None => candle_examples::hub_load_safetensors(&repo, "model.safetensors.index.json")?,
     };
     println!("retrieved the files in {:?}", start.elapsed());
     let tokenizer = Tokenizer::from_file(tokenizer_filename).map_err(E::msg)?;
diff --git a/candle-examples/src/lib.rs b/candle-examples/src/lib.rs
index dff31b85..d6dce4a3 100644
--- a/candle-examples/src/lib.rs
+++ b/candle-examples/src/lib.rs
@@ -117,3 +117,30 @@ pub fn save_image_resize<P: AsRef<std::path::Path>>(
     image.save(p).map_err(candle::Error::wrap)?;
     Ok(())
 }
+
+/// Loads the safetensors files for a model from the hub based on a json index file.
+pub fn hub_load_safetensors(
+    repo: &hf_hub::api::sync::ApiRepo,
+    json_file: &str,
+) -> Result<Vec<std::path::PathBuf>> {
+    let json_file = repo.get(json_file).map_err(candle::Error::wrap)?;
+    let json_file = std::fs::File::open(json_file)?;
+    let json: serde_json::Value =
+        serde_json::from_reader(&json_file).map_err(candle::Error::wrap)?;
+    let weight_map = match json.get("weight_map") {
+        None => candle::bail!("no weight map in {json_file:?}"),
+        Some(serde_json::Value::Object(map)) => map,
+        Some(_) => candle::bail!("weight map in {json_file:?} is not a map"),
+    };
+    let mut safetensors_files = std::collections::HashSet::new();
+    for value in weight_map.values() {
+        if let Some(file) = value.as_str() {
+            safetensors_files.insert(file.to_string());
+        }
+    }
+    let safetensors_files = safetensors_files
+        .iter()
+        .map(|v| repo.get(v).map_err(candle::Error::wrap))
+        .collect::<Result<Vec<_>>>()?;
+    Ok(safetensors_files)
+}