diff --git a/examples/finetune/finetune.cpp b/examples/finetune/finetune.cpp
index d2451bdca..65501c355 100644
--- a/examples/finetune/finetune.cpp
+++ b/examples/finetune/finetune.cpp
@@ -694,10 +694,12 @@ struct ggml_tensor * llama_build_lora_finetune_graphs(
     struct ggml_tensor * cur = t01;
 
     std::vector<struct ggml_tensor *> checkpoints;
-    checkpoints.push_back(tokens_input);
-    checkpoints.push_back(targets);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t00);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t01);
+    if (enable_checkpointing) {
+        checkpoints.push_back(tokens_input);
+        checkpoints.push_back(targets);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t00);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t01);
+    }
 
     struct ggml_tensor * kv_scale = NULL;
     if (!enable_flash_attn) {
@@ -766,7 +768,9 @@ struct ggml_tensor * llama_build_lora_finetune_graphs(
         struct ggml_tensor * t29 = ggml_mul_mat      (ctx, w2, t28);                                set_name(t29, "t29");     assert_shape_2d(t29, n_embd, N*n_batch);
         struct ggml_tensor * t30 = ggml_add          (ctx, t29, t21);                               set_name(t30, "t30");     assert_shape_2d(t30, n_embd, N*n_batch);
         cur = t30;
-        checkpoints.push_back(cur);
+        if (enable_checkpointing) {
+            checkpoints.push_back(cur);
+        }
     }
     struct ggml_tensor * t31   = ggml_rms_norm          (ctx, cur, rms_norm_eps);                   set_name(t31, "t31");     assert_shape_2d(t31, n_embd, N*n_batch);
     struct ggml_tensor * t32   = ggml_repeat            (ctx, norm, t31);                           set_name(t32, "t32");     assert_shape_2d(t32, n_embd, N*n_batch);
@@ -775,12 +779,14 @@ struct ggml_tensor * llama_build_lora_finetune_graphs(
     struct ggml_tensor * t35   = ggml_reshape_3d        (ctx, t34, n_vocab, N, n_batch);            set_name(t35, "t35");     assert_shape_3d(t35, n_vocab, N, n_batch);
     struct ggml_tensor * t36   = ggml_cross_entropy_loss(ctx, t35, targets);                        set_name(t36, "t36");     assert_shape_1d(t36, 1);
 
-    checkpoints.push_back(t31);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t32);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t33);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t34);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t35);
-    checkpoints.push_back(t36);
+    if (enable_checkpointing) {
+        checkpoints.push_back(t31);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t32);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t33);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t34);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t35);
+        checkpoints.push_back(t36);
+    }
 
     ggml_build_forward_expand(gf, t36);