description: Learn about YOLOv8 Classify models for image classification. Get detailed information on List of Pretrained Models & how to Train, Validate, Predict & Export models.
Image classification is the simplest of the three tasks and involves classifying an entire image into one of a set of predefined classes.
The output of an image classifier is a single class label and a confidence score. Image classification is useful when you need to know only what class an image belongs to and don't need to know where objects of that class are located or what their exact shape is.
YOLOv8 Classify models use the `-cls` suffix, i.e. `yolov8n-cls.pt` and are pretrained on [ImageNet](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/ImageNet.yaml).
YOLOv8 pretrained Classify models are shown here. Detect, Segment and Pose models are pretrained on the [COCO](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/coco.yaml) dataset, while Classify models are pretrained on the [ImageNet](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/ImageNet.yaml) dataset.
[Models](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/tree/main/ultralytics/cfg/models) download automatically from the latest Ultralytics [release](https://github.com/ultralytics/assets/releases) on first use.
- **acc** values are model accuracies on the [ImageNet](https://www.image-net.org/) dataset validation set. <br>Reproduce by `yolo val classify data=path/to/ImageNet device=0`
- **Speed** averaged over ImageNet val images using an [Amazon EC2 P4d](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/p4/) instance. <br>Reproduce by `yolo val classify data=path/to/ImageNet batch=1 device=0|cpu`
Train YOLOv8n-cls on the MNIST160 dataset for 100 epochs at image size 64. For a full list of available arguments see the [Configuration](../usage/cfg.md) page.
Validate trained YOLOv8n-cls model accuracy on the MNIST160 dataset. No argument need to passed as the `model` retains its training `data` and arguments as model attributes.
Available YOLOv8-cls export formats are in the table below. You can export to any format using the `format` argument, i.e. `format='onnx'` or `format='engine'`. You can predict or validate directly on exported models, i.e. `yolo predict model=yolov8n-cls.onnx`. Usage examples are shown for your model after export completes.
