diff --git a/convert_hf_to_gguf.py b/convert_hf_to_gguf.py
index b754dd815..2e08db345 100755
--- a/convert_hf_to_gguf.py
+++ b/convert_hf_to_gguf.py
@@ -6389,8 +6389,8 @@ def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
         help="model is executed on big endian machine",
     )
     parser.add_argument(
-        "model", type=Path,
-        help="directory containing model file",
+        "model", type=str,
+        help="directory containing model file or huggingface repository ID (if --remote)",
         nargs="?",
     )
     parser.add_argument(
@@ -6493,18 +6493,20 @@ def main() -> None:
     else:
         logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
 
-    dir_model = args.model
-
     if args.remote:
+        hf_repo_id = args.model
         from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download
         local_dir = snapshot_download(
-            repo_id=str(dir_model),
+            repo_id=hf_repo_id,
             allow_patterns=["LICENSE", "*.json", "*.md", "*.txt", "tokenizer.model"])
         dir_model = Path(local_dir)
         logger.info(f"Downloaded config and tokenizer to {local_dir}")
+    else:
+        hf_repo_id = None
+        dir_model = Path(args.model)
 
     if not dir_model.is_dir():
-        logger.error(f'Error: {args.model} is not a directory')
+        logger.error(f'Error: {dir_model} is not a directory')
         sys.exit(1)
 
     ftype_map: dict[str, gguf.LlamaFileType] = {
@@ -6524,9 +6526,9 @@ def main() -> None:
 
     if args.outfile is not None:
         fname_out = args.outfile
-    elif args.remote:
+    elif hf_repo_id:
         # if remote, use the model ID as the output file name
-        fname_out = Path("./" + str(args.model).replace("/", "-") + "-{ftype}.gguf")
+        fname_out = Path("./" + hf_repo_id.replace("/", "-") + "-{ftype}.gguf")
     else:
         fname_out = dir_model
 
@@ -6555,7 +6557,7 @@ def main() -> None:
                                      split_max_tensors=args.split_max_tensors,
                                      split_max_size=split_str_to_n_bytes(args.split_max_size), dry_run=args.dry_run,
                                      small_first_shard=args.no_tensor_first_split,
-                                     remote_hf_model_id=str(args.model) if args.remote else None)
+                                     remote_hf_model_id=hf_repo_id)
 
         if args.vocab_only:
             logger.info("Exporting model vocab...")