diff --git a/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py b/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
index e44e573a5..7d4443805 100644
--- a/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
+++ b/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
@@ -82,7 +82,9 @@ def __init__(self, model_name_or_path: Optional[str] = None,
 
                 model_path = os.path.join(cache_folder, model_name_or_path.replace("/", "_"))
                 
-                if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(model_path, 'modules.json')):
+                if not os.path.exists(model_path):
+                    if transformers.utils.is_offline_mode():
+                        raise ValueError("Offline mode but model {} not downloaded".format(model_name_or_path))
                     # Download from hub with caching
                     snapshot_download(model_name_or_path,
                                         cache_dir=cache_folder,