diff --git a/examples/benchmark_onnx.py b/examples/benchmark_onnx.py
index 2670ef057c..b35a8c4be4 100644
--- a/examples/benchmark_onnx.py
+++ b/examples/benchmark_onnx.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import sys, time, pickle
+import sys, time
 from tinygrad import TinyJit, GlobalCounters, fetch, getenv
 from tinygrad.frontend.onnx import OnnxRunner, onnx_load
 from extra.onnx_helpers import get_example_inputs, validate
diff --git a/examples/coder.py b/examples/coder.py
index e6b9a5f835..8a8d3c5b78 100644
--- a/examples/coder.py
+++ b/examples/coder.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ sys.path.append(os.getcwd())
 
 from io import StringIO
 from contextlib import redirect_stdout
-from tinygrad import Tensor, nn, Device, dtypes
+from tinygrad import Tensor, nn
 from tinygrad.helpers import Timing, colored, getenv, fetch
 from extra.models.llama import Transformer, convert_from_huggingface, fix_bf16
 from sentencepiece import SentencePieceProcessor
diff --git a/examples/hlb_cifar10.py b/examples/hlb_cifar10.py
index 378700de76..d71a581e54 100644
--- a/examples/hlb_cifar10.py
+++ b/examples/hlb_cifar10.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import numpy as np
 from typing import Optional
 from extra.lr_scheduler import OneCycleLR
 from tinygrad import nn, dtypes, Tensor, Device, GlobalCounters, TinyJit, Variable
-from tinygrad.nn.state import get_state_dict, get_parameters
+from tinygrad.nn.state import get_state_dict
 from tinygrad.nn import optim
 from tinygrad.helpers import Context, BEAM, WINO, getenv, colored, prod
 from extra.bench_log import BenchEvent, WallTimeEvent
diff --git a/examples/llm.c/export.py b/examples/llm.c/export.py
index 9612f7e96f..4ab0a4fb2b 100755
--- a/examples/llm.c/export.py
+++ b/examples/llm.c/export.py
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
 import os
 if "NOOPT" not in os.environ: os.environ["NOOPT"] = "1"
-from tinygrad import Device, nn, Tensor, dtypes, Variable
+from tinygrad import Device, nn, Tensor, dtypes
 Device.DEFAULT = "CPU"
 from train_gpt2 import GPT, GPTConfig
-from tinygrad.helpers import dedup, to_function_name, flatten, getenv, GlobalCounters, ansilen, to_function_name
-from tinygrad.engine.realize import get_kernel, run_schedule
+from tinygrad.helpers import dedup, flatten, getenv, GlobalCounters, to_function_name
+from tinygrad.engine.realize import get_kernel
 from tinygrad.engine.memory import memory_planner
 from tinygrad.uop.ops import Ops
 
diff --git a/examples/other_mnist/beautiful_mnist_torch.py b/examples/other_mnist/beautiful_mnist_torch.py
index fb3c547aab..9fa597bae8 100644
--- a/examples/other_mnist/beautiful_mnist_torch.py
+++ b/examples/other_mnist/beautiful_mnist_torch.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ class Model(nn.Module):
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
   if getenv("TINY_BACKEND"):
-    import tinygrad.frontend.torch
+    import tinygrad.frontend.torch  # noqa: F401
     device = torch.device("tiny")
   else:
     device = torch.device({"METAL":"mps","NV":"cuda"}.get(Device.DEFAULT, "cpu"))
diff --git a/examples/sdxl.py b/examples/sdxl.py
index d449eb5e6c..24a5a6bb91 100644
--- a/examples/sdxl.py
+++ b/examples/sdxl.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 
 from tinygrad import Tensor, TinyJit, dtypes, GlobalCounters
 from tinygrad.nn import Conv2d, GroupNorm
-from tinygrad.nn.state import safe_load, load_state_dict, get_state_dict
+from tinygrad.nn.state import safe_load, load_state_dict
 from tinygrad.helpers import fetch, trange, colored, Timing
 from extra.models.clip import Embedder, FrozenClosedClipEmbedder, FrozenOpenClipEmbedder
 from extra.models.unet import UNetModel, Upsample, Downsample, timestep_embedding
diff --git a/examples/stunning_mnist.py b/examples/stunning_mnist.py
index 66c5aa82d9..9f308c0cb7 100644
--- a/examples/stunning_mnist.py
+++ b/examples/stunning_mnist.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 from examples.beautiful_mnist import Model
 from tinygrad import Tensor, nn, getenv, GlobalCounters, Variable
 from tinygrad.nn.datasets import mnist
-from tinygrad.helpers import trange, DEBUG
+from tinygrad.helpers import trange
 
 # STEPS=70 python3 examples/stunning_mnist.py
 # NOTE: it's broken with STACK=1, why?
diff --git a/examples/torch_cuda_kernel.py b/examples/torch_cuda_kernel.py
index 5d1706efe8..9786872fdd 100644
--- a/examples/torch_cuda_kernel.py
+++ b/examples/torch_cuda_kernel.py
@@ -2,10 +2,9 @@
 #!POPCORN gpu A100
 # not a stable API, but works
 
-import torch, functools
+import torch
 from tinygrad import Tensor, TinyJit, Device
-from tinygrad.engine.realize import CompiledRunner
-from tinygrad.helpers import get_single_element, Context, OSX
+from tinygrad.helpers import Context, OSX
 from tinygrad.dtype import _from_torch_dtype
 
 @TinyJit
diff --git a/examples/vgg7.py b/examples/vgg7.py
index a4a5835e53..1b01fd1aaf 100644
--- a/examples/vgg7.py
+++ b/examples/vgg7.py
@@ -2,8 +2,6 @@ import sys
 import random
 import json
 import numpy
-from pathlib import Path
-from PIL import Image
 from tinygrad.tensor import Tensor
 from tinygrad.nn.optim import SGD
 from tinygrad.nn.state import safe_save, safe_load, get_state_dict, load_state_dict
diff --git a/examples/whisper.py b/examples/whisper.py
index dc2832a4ab..da92a95f13 100644
--- a/examples/whisper.py
+++ b/examples/whisper.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ from typing import Optional, Union, Literal, List
 
 from tinygrad import Tensor, TinyJit, Variable, nn
 from tinygrad.nn.state import torch_load, load_state_dict
-from tinygrad.helpers import getenv, DEBUG, fetch
+from tinygrad.helpers import getenv, fetch
 
 import numpy as np
 import librosa
diff --git a/examples/yolov8-onnx.py b/examples/yolov8-onnx.py
index 5f76ab7e4c..3b9bdfba9c 100644
--- a/examples/yolov8-onnx.py
+++ b/examples/yolov8-onnx.py
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ from ultralytics import YOLO
 from pathlib import Path
 from tinygrad.frontend.onnx import OnnxRunner, onnx_load
 from extra.onnx_helpers import get_example_inputs
-from tinygrad.tensor import Tensor
 
 os.chdir("/tmp")
 if not Path("yolov8n-seg.onnx").is_file():
diff --git a/examples/yolov8.py b/examples/yolov8.py
index 1a9035a21a..4888ea0fb6 100644
--- a/examples/yolov8.py
+++ b/examples/yolov8.py
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
 from tinygrad.nn import Conv2d, BatchNorm2d
 from tinygrad.tensor import Tensor
-from tinygrad.device import is_dtype_supported
-from tinygrad import dtypes
 import numpy as np
 from itertools import chain
 from pathlib import Path
diff --git a/ruff.toml b/ruff.toml
index ac3ee4950e..d57631f3d7 100644
--- a/ruff.toml
+++ b/ruff.toml
@@ -36,9 +36,17 @@ line-length = 150
 
 exclude = [
   "docs/",
-  "examples/",
   "extra/",
   "tinygrad/runtime/autogen",
   "test/external/mlperf_resnet",
   "test/external/mlperf_unet3d",
 ]
+
+# detect unused imports in examples
+[lint.per-file-ignores]
+"examples/**/*.py" = [
+  "W6", "E71", "E72", "E112", "E113", "E203", "E272", "E275",
+  "E303", "E304", "E501", "E702", "E703", "E731", "W191",
+  "W291", "W293", "UP039", "C416", "RET506", "RET507", "A",
+  "FURB110", "RUF018", "F541", "F841"
+]
\ No newline at end of file