Using torrents, you can quickly download movies, films and other files to your Mac. A torrent is a file with the file extension.torrent. This article will explain how to download torrents on a Mac. In this feature, we look at all the Mac OS X torrent downloaders worth considering and figure out which is the best torrent client for Mac OS X user to depend on.

• Utorrent Download Mac
• Torrent Program For Mac
• How To Download Torrent On Macbook Pro
• Mac Torrent Download Net
• How To Download Torrent On Mac Pro

Short Bytes: By looking at the Mac OS X torrent clients for ease of use and features, less annoying advertising and no toolbar attached, we came up with a list of the best programs. The best torrent clients for Mac OS X includes the likes of uTorrent, Transmission, Deluge, etc. You can use these torrenting programs for getting free torrent downloads.

Large or obscure Torrent files can take a long time to download, so a good BitTorrent client for Mac should also be unobtrusive, sitting in the background and quietly pulling down your files while you continue to work. It should also be clean and free from toolbars and any other malware stuff in your system.

In this feature, we look at all the Mac OS X torrent downloaders worth considering and figure out which is the best torrent client for Mac OS X user to depend on.

Best Torrent Downloader For Mac | 2017

1. uTorrent

µTorrent (or uTorrent) is my favorite and one of the most popular BitTorrent clients available for Mac OS X. It has earned this status because it’s lightweight (~1MB), fast, powerful, feature-rich, and supported and developed by BitTorrent, Inc, which in a way makes it the “official” BitTorrent client.

It has all of the features you would expect from a good BitTorrent client, including the ability to resume stopped downloads, download things in sequential order, support for encrypted files, support for remote control via mobile apps, download scheduling, port forwarding, and more. It’ll even throttle itself back as soon as you start to use bandwidth heavy applications on your computer. µTorrent also makes it easy to find and download the official BitTorrent Bundles, which are packed with music, movies, and other great free, freely-licensed entertainment to enjoy. It’s completely free but not open source.

— uTorrent

2. WebTorrent Desktop

WebTorrent Desktop for Mac is a great choice for Mac when it comes to streaming purposes. You don’t need to wait for your files to finish the download and you can watch them right away. It connects to both WebTorrent and BitTorrent peers.

Some of the other highlight features of WebTorrent Desktop app are lightweight and fast, great user experiences, open source, free, Chromecast, DLNA, and AirPlay support, bloat free. You can go ahead and download this excellent Torrent downloading and streaming client for Mac.

— WebTorrent Desktop

3. Deluge

Deluge makes its name as “old is gold.” It is a venerable classic, and one of the oldest BitTorrent clients around. Perhaps because of its age, it’s much smaller in stature than other BitTorrent clients and has a small footprint.

It’s completely free, cross-platform, and supports things like encrypted downloads, private torrents, password protection, bandwidth scheduling and throttling, remote management via a web-based interface, proxy support etc. It is inherently very small but can be easily extended with third-party plugins available.

It’s also completely free from advertising and unwanted plugins, and has a focus on providing features the community needs which made it to #2 on our list of best torrent downloader for Mac.

— Deluge

4. qBittorrent

qBittorrent is a cross-platform, lightweight, well polished, and free of many issues. It can be configured to send an email when your downloads are complete, you can search for files (even by category) inside the app instead of digging around for reliable downloads, supports web-based remote control, port forwarding, IP filtering, and more. It’s remarkably powerful for the folks who need these features.

qBittorrent is a relatively obscure program, so there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of it yet. It’s simple to operate, easy on the eyes and perfectly functional. We found it using little background processing and is bereft of adverts and spam.

— qBittorent

5. Transmission

Transmission is dead simple torrent client available today in the market. It is a very lightweight BitTorrent client and many of you use it on OS X machines, Linux boxes, or even Raspberry Pis. It’s super-lightweight, runs quietly in the background with or without a UI – (it’s up to you) which makes it perfect for servers – NAS boxes, HTPCs, and other systems where you may want to do some downloading.

Feature wise, it runs natively and can be remotely managed. It gives you robust system notifications for your active and completed downloads, download scheduling, port forwarding, remote management, encryption, and just about everything else you might expect from a well-built client.

— Transmission

Some more helpful articles on torrenting:

Did you find our list of the best BitTorrent clients helpful? Tell us your views and favorite clients in the comments below.

Image by jacobian

Heard of BitTorrent, but not quite sure how to use it, or wonder whether you should use it at all? Here’s a quick guide for newbies on how it works and how to get started downloading torrent files.

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is an internet peer-to-peer file sharing protocol that works in a sort of decentralized fashion. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that as you download portions of your files from the the person who originally shared the file, you are also getting portions from fellow downloaders to maximize data exchange.

BitTorrent is one of the most commonly used protocols for transferring very large files because it doesn’t overload web servers that provide downloads—since everybody is both sending and receiving, it’s much more efficient than everybody downloading from a single server.

How BitTorrent Works

Utorrent Download Mac

To better understand how this all works, take a look at this diagram from Wikipedia detailing the process:

“In this animation, the colored bars beneath all of the 7 clients in the upper region above represent the file, with each color representing a individual piece of the file. After the initial pieces transfer from the seed (large system at the bottom), the pieces are individually transferred from client to client. The original seeder only needs to send out one copy of the file for all the clients to receive a copy. To stop animation, click browser’s Stop or hit ESC key.”

Indexers

An “indexer” is a site that compiles a list of torrents and descriptions and is a place where users form a community (with rules!) around BitTorrent content. When you want to share, download, or request files, the indexer’s community is where you go. These usually take the form of a forum and/or an IRC channel.

Trackers

A “tracker” is a server that assists in directing peers, initiated downloads, and maintaining statistics. Since most indexers have their own private tracker, most people just refer to them both as trackers. In this article, we’re going to use this more general definition to avoid confusion with whatever you may find yourself on the internet.

Trackers route little pieces of data, or packets, to downloaders and assist them in connecting to their fellow peers—as you download chunks of files, you also upload them to other people who have different chunks of the file, and because everybody’s sharing with each other while downloading, it tends to zip along quickly.

Seeders and Leechers

Once you’re done downloading, you become a “seeder” and you continue to upload to other peers. If you disable uploading and you only download, you’re referred to as a “leecher,” and aside from its ethical misgivings it can lead to being banned from the tracker. As such, it’s generally good practice to seed at least as much as you download.

Image by nrkbeta

Public vs Private Trackers

Another aspect of trackers are whether they are public or private—the “Private” trackers are based on membership, so only registered users can download, upload, and/or have access to perks like additional downloads. “Public” trackers usually don’t require registration, or if they do, it’s free and always open. In general, the best experience comes from a private tracker with a strong community, so be sure to look around and see if you can’t find one that suits your tastes.

Torrent Program For Mac

BitTorrent Clients

The other side of the BitTorrent equation can be found on your local computer: a client. The client’s job is to manage your torrents, actually connect to other peers, manage statistics on your end, and, of course, download and upload. While the tracker gives instructions on what to do and how to connect, it’s the client that actually does the heavy-lifting. Because of this, it’s important that you choose a client you trust as well as a client that performs amiably.

There’s no lack of free, feature-packed BitTorrent clients, but we strongly recommend uTorrent (for Windows) and Transmission (for Mac OS and Linux). uTorrent is a powerhouse of an app, and easily one of the lightest to run on Windows. Transmission is installed by default on Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions, and the Mac version runs extremely well and has Growl support. They are both novice and resource-friendly but don’t skip out on some of the more useful options for advanced users.

Note: uTorrent, by default, enables an Ask.com toolbar during installation and offers to make your default search Ask.com. This can be turned off without any problems, but it bears mentioning.

Legality of BitTorrent

BitTorrent itself is a protocol, so it falls to individual trackers as to what’s legal and what’s not. If a copyright violation occurs, it is the tracker that is primarily held responsible, and subsequently its users. You probably should avoid blindly downloading copyrighted works on public trackers, since your IP address can be easily tracked.

There are many legal uses for BitTorrent, however—for instance, most community-driven Linux distributions offer torrents for their ISOs. Phish fans often record live shows (so long as they comply with Phish’s policy on music trading) and share them online, as do many artists themselves.

There are plenty of legal trackers out there, as well as torrent aggregators that compile links to legal downloads hosted on other trackers. Here’s a couple of examples:

• Jamendo is a free music tracker that distributes Creative Commons-licensed albums, and artists can contribute their own album if it’s licensed in the same way.
• Linux Tracker provides downloads to Linux distributions, both popular and low-key, and serves as a great alternative for downloading ISO files.
• Clear Bits offers “open licensed digital media” downloads for free, charging content providers instead. And, as always, Google can be a powerful ally in finding legal torrents.

We here at How-To Geek do not condone piracy and we urge you to please download responsibly.

Downloading Torrents

Things are shared through “torrents,” small files containing text that act as instructions for the tracker. In order to download files, you hop on your tracker’s website and download the torrent file, which is usually under 30 KB. You then open that torrent in your chosen BitTorrent and you’ve started to download! The process is that simple, although there is a lot you can do to make the most of your connection if you play around with your client.

Step by Step

First and foremost, download and install your chosen BitTorrent client. Here, I’m using uTorrent as my chosen client on Windows. If you’re using Mac or Linux, it won’t be too hard to follow along using Transmission.

Next, we need a torrent file. I’ve got a torrent of Countdown’s album “Break Rise Blowing” from Jamendo.

How To Download Torrent On Macbook Pro

Once you have your torrent file in an easy-to-reach (or well-organized) location, all you have to do is double-click on the .torrent file to load it in your client.

You’ll see uTorrent pop up and you’ll get a dialog with option for the specific download.

Here, you can choose where the torrent will download to, whether or not you want to add it to the top of your queue of torrents, and you can even unmark individual files from being downloaded. Once you’ve settled on what you’d like, you can go ahead and click on OK.

In the main uTorrent window you’ll see your queue. From here you can manage your torrents:

• The Pause button will pause downloading, but keep its connections open.
• The Stop button will stop downloading and close its connections.
• The Play button will start downloads once they’ve been paused or stopped.
• The red X button will give you a prompt to delete your torrent (and files, if you choose).
• The Up arrow will raise your torrent’s priority amongst all of the currently active torrents.
• The Down arrow will lower its priority in the queue.

Mac Torrent Download Net

Getting started is just that easy. The world of BitTorrent is vast, but hopefully this introduction will give you the incentive to take the plunge. Happy torrenting!

How To Download Torrent On Mac Pro

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