Adding torrents

Every way of adding a torrent ends in the same Add dialog, unless you tell Torrenta to skip it.

Ways in

When the window comes back to the front and the clipboard holds a magnet, a torrent link or a link to a file, the status bar says so and names the key to add it. A link to a .torrent is fetched first; a file larger than 10 MiB is refused as not being a torrent.

From the desktop and a second launch

One Torrenta runs per settings folder. Starting a second one with .torrent files, magnet links or URLs on its command line hands them to the running one, which comes to the front (out of the tray if it was hidden there) and opens the Add dialog for each. The second prints nothing and is gone within a second. Started with nothing, it only brings the window forward.

That is how a double-clicked file and a browser’s magnet link arrive. The packages declare both types, and Settings → General → Operating system → Register as handler for .torrent files and magnet links (on by default) makes Torrenta the default at each start: xdg-mime default on Linux, and the magnet: protocol and .torrent default under your user’s registry classes on Windows (unticking removes them). On macOS the app bundle declares both, and Finder’s Get Info → Open with chooses.

The Add dialog

The header says where the torrent came from (“FROM FILE”, “FROM CLIPBOARD”, “FROM SEARCH” …), its name, and its size, file count, format (v1, v2 or hybrid), tracker count and comment.

On the left is the file tree: a select-all box, each file’s size and its priority (Skip, Low, Normal or High). Space ticks a file, + and − step its priority, and ← → fold a folder.

On the right:

• Save to, with a disk bar and a sentence such as “412 GiB free on /data · 5.9 GiB leaves 406 GiB”. With an incomplete folder set, the line says where the files start and the free space of both folders.
• Category. A category with a save path fills the folder when you choose it.
• Stop when: Never, Metadata arrives, or Files are checked.
• Tags, comma-separated. A new tag is created as you type it. Under the field, a chip for each tag you already have is lit while the tag is in the field; a press adds or removes it. Typing suggests the tags that match the one at the caret, those that start with it first: Down and Up move, Enter or Tab takes one, and Esc closes the list rather than the dialog. Down on an empty tag lists them all.
• Content layout: as the torrent has it, in a folder of its own, or without its root folder. The default is in Settings → Adding torrents.
• Options: Sequential download, First and last pieces first (so a video plays and seeks early), and Skip hash check.

Each key is shown beside its button. The defaults for Start paused, Sequential download and the content layout are under Settings → Adding torrents.

Magnets: the file list while you wait

A magnet carries no file list. While the dialog is open, Torrenta fetches it and fills the tree live (“Fetching file list · 3 peers · 12s”). Everything else can be set in the meantime. Then:

• Add now, pick files when ready (Enter) adds the torrent at once, set to stop when its metadata arrives. When it has, the list reads Files to choose instead of “Paused by you”, and its Overview offers Choose files… (also Torrent → Choose Files…, the context menu and the palette) to tick its files; that starts it. A restart before the file list arrived keeps it waiting for you.
• Wait here for the file list (Ctrl+Enter) keeps the dialog open until the tree is full. It is offered only while the list can still come.

Either way, the new torrent starts with the peers the fetch already found instead of looking for the swarm again.

The content check

Above the file tree, a card names the files that deserve a look before anything is downloaded:

• a program named like a video or a document (Film.mkv.exe, spaces before the last dot included);
• a name whose real extension is hidden by right-to-left characters;
• a Windows shortcut (.lnk, .url and the like);
• a program, or a link to a web page, in a film or an album;
• an archive where the name promises a film and nothing else is there;
• a file named for a password or a codec.

Red is danger, amber a caution. Skip these files unticks them and keeps the rest. A program in a software torrent is not flagged, and a file you skip stops being reported.

Adds without a dialog (watch folders, RSS rules, an article’s Download, Add without asking, headless and Remote access) follow Settings → Adding torrents → Flagged files when adding without a dialog: Skip those files (the default), Refuse the torrent, or Add them anyway. The Event Log says which, and what was found. A magnet has no file list yet, so it stops once its metadata is in, is checked, and then starts, starts without the flagged files, or is removed before anything was downloaded; a restart in between keeps it waiting.

An archive that asks for a password is caught once the torrent starts: its first .rar, .zip or .7z gets its first piece before anything else, and if the archive is encrypted (its files, or its names too), the Overview shows a red card saying so, with Skip that file and Remove the torrent. A torrent that hides its content behind a password usually sells the password. This needs the files on this machine.

The Swarm line

Under the free space, a Swarm line says how the swarm looks before you add, with the counts:

It is there at once for a .torrent, and for a magnet once its file list is in, and it follows the files you tick. It reads the trackers’ counts and the peers it meets without downloading anything, and gives no time estimate: there is no rate to measure one from.

A private torrent is not looked at, since a private tracker counts every announce, unless Settings → Adding torrents → Look at a private torrent’s swarm is on. With a Transmission daemon the line is not shown.

Files already on disk

When a new torrent holds a file that another torrent in the list has complete, the dialog offers to put that file in place instead of downloading it: an Already on disk line such as “Link 3 files (4.2 GB) from …”, ticked by default.

• What matches. For v2 and hybrid torrents, any file with the same content, whatever its name. For a v1 torrent, a file whose pieces hold nothing else (a single-file torrent, or a padded one) when the other torrent was made with the same piece size.
• A link (on the same file system) writes no bytes: the two torrents share the file. The add’s own check then verifies every byte.
• On another drive the file is copied: a clone where the file system can make one (cp --reflink on Linux, cp -c on macOS), which uses no space either, else a full copy, whose size the dialog shows first.

Settings → Adding torrents → Files already on disk chooses: Download them again, Link them, never copy, Link them, ask before copying (the default) or Link them, copy from other drives. Watch folders, RSS rules and adds without a dialog link without asking. The Files tab marks such a file: “Linked from …”, “Cloned from …” or “Copied from …”.

Skipping the dialog

Tick Next time, add with these settings without asking in the dialog, or Settings → Adding torrents → Add without asking, and every input is added with the defaults and no dialog opens. Untick the setting to bring the dialog back.

Links that are not torrents

A link to a file that is not a torrent (http, https, ftp, ftps or sftp) is downloaded by curl and joins the list beside the torrents. Instead of the Add dialog, Download Link asks three things:

• Folder, with Browse and the free space there. The download folder by default.
• Name: the link’s own to begin with. A name you type is kept over the one the server gives.
• Start paused.

“Add without asking” skips it, as it does the Add dialog. Links that arrive together are asked about one after the other.

The file grows under a .part name and takes the server’s name for it when it is done, never over a file that is already there. Pause stops curl; resume carries on from where it stopped. A link that turns out to be a .torrent is added as a torrent when it arrives. The clipboard offers a link to a file the way it offers a magnet; a link to a web page is not offered.

In the list a download has a chain before its name, Done where a torrent would be Seeding, and the server where a torrent names its peers. The sidebar’s From links and the omnibox’s is:link pick them out. Pause, remove, a category, tags, Rename, Set Location and Limits work as they do for a torrent; commands only a torrent understands (Recheck, Reannounce, Sequential, Super Seeding, the queue, Copy Info-Hash, Copy Magnet Link, Export .torrent) are off for downloads and skip them in a mixed selection.

Settings → Adding torrents has two rows for them:

• Links at once: how many run at the same time (3); the rest wait their turn.
• curl program: empty uses the curl on the PATH.

curl runs through the engine’s proxy, and the download limit in force (the alternative one included) is shared equally among the downloads from links, apart from the torrents’; a download’s own limit holds when it is lower. They run on this machine whichever engine has the torrents.

Where the files go

Downloads go to the download folder (~/Downloads until you change it in Settings → General → Downloads), or to the category’s save path when the category has one. Three more choices sit on that page, all off by default:

• Incomplete folder. New torrents download there and are moved to their save path (or their category’s) the moment they complete. A file already at the destination is never written over.
• Append .part to incomplete files. Each file carries the suffix until it is complete; a file that was already complete keeps its name.
• Pre-allocate disk space for all files. A file is written at its full size from its first piece.

What is still owed to a torrent’s files (the move, the names to take back) is kept beside its resume data, so a restart in the middle of a download knows both.

To move a torrent that is already in the list, use Torrent → Set Location… (also in the palette). See The transfer list.