diff --git a/cellpose/contrib/distributed_segmentation.py b/cellpose/contrib/distributed_segmentation.py
index a504670a..80ff7aa6 100644
--- a/cellpose/contrib/distributed_segmentation.py
+++ b/cellpose/contrib/distributed_segmentation.py
@@ -774,7 +774,7 @@ class in this module. If you are running on the Janelia LSF cluster, see
     
         segmentation_da = dask.array.from_zarr(temp_zarr)
         relabeled = dask.array.map_blocks(
-            lambda block: np.load(new_labeling_path)[block],
+            lambda block: np.load(new_labeling_path, mmap_mode='r')[block],
             segmentation_da,
             dtype=np.uint32,
             chunks=segmentation_da.chunks,