-2

I normally use Transmission as a BT client on my Mac. Great app, but not for 1 type of torrent I download on regular basis.

The torrent is 30-40 Gb, with around 10000 files. I only need 200-300 files consuming maybe 50 Mb most of the time.

I need a BT client that is capable of selecting just the wanted files.

  • It needs a sorting option for filenames (by default they are mixed up). Transmission fails on this as no sorting is possible
  • It may only create the requested files in the download folder. Transmission fails on this aspect as it creates all files that share BT download chunks with the requested files too. VUZE fails even more on this as it creates all 10000 files as empty file first, thus waisting 40 Gb.
  • The client runs either on Win XP or on OSX 10.4

Anybody knows a BT client for this?

Improve this question
3
  • Why do you need to keep downloading a specific torrent?
    – Josh K
    Nov 24, 2009 at 18:30
  • 2
    ‘by default they are mixed up’: actually they're presented in the same order as they're stored in the torrent file, so it depends on the tool that created the torrent whether the order they appear in is of any use or not.
    – bobince
    Nov 24, 2009 at 19:45
  • The company delivers a torrent every month. It's just a different version. But it is a returning process. @bobince: uTorrent solves the sorting and selecting. It works great.
    – bert
    Nov 24, 2009 at 20:10

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
8

On Windows, uTorrent has this function.

It's still Beta for Mac, but worth a try: http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/mac

Improve this answer
6
  • The OSX version has ridicule system requirements. 10.5 minimum, where BT clients ideally run on the old macs catching dust.
    – bert
    Nov 24, 2009 at 16:21
  • Yikes, didn't realize that. If Azureus/Vuze doesn't have this function either, then I'm stuck too. Sorry!
    – Kablam
    Nov 24, 2009 at 16:31
  • I'm gonna try uTorrent at home. Hope that one does a better job.
    – bert
    Nov 24, 2009 at 16:32
  • uTorrent runs great on mac. As far as requiring 10.5, it's rare to find any new software that works on older versions of the OS. Buying new OS upgrades is almost a requirement on Macs since backwards compatibility breaks more with each update. Irrelevant for this question though, Transmission requires 10.5 as well.
    – Will Eddins
    Nov 24, 2009 at 18:08
  • They seem to be working on 10.4 support. The 10.5 development is one of those bad aspects on OSX. Windows developers support XP for all apps, where OSX developpers try to keep up with all the Eye-Candy steve throws out over us all the time. Basic functionality of 99% of new mac-apps would work great on 10.3 and 10.4 too. It's just lazyness+fanboyism that hurts serious OSX development.
    – bert
    Nov 24, 2009 at 18:33
0

Actually, addressing one of your points about Transmission, you can have it only download specific files, and it will only have copies on disk of the ones you select (and any files that happen to share a block of data with one of the files you want).

What you have to do:

  1. Go into Transmission's preferences
  2. Go to the Transfers section
  3. Check the box for "Display 'adding transfer' options window

What this does, is present you with file selection before Transmission begins downloading anything, and then only the files you have checked get downloaded. You can't sort, that's true, but with if you have access to a text listing of the torrent's contents, you can do a text search ahead of time to find where they are (if it's not a neatly-sorted torrent file).

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    Transmission is not nearly as good with this, as it creates all files that share chunks with the requested files too. So you have to reselect your selection again after downloading. uTurrent stores all these unwanted chunks in 1 big temp file.
    – bert
    Nov 27, 2009 at 15:08
  • Oh that's cool, I didn't know that. Azureus/Vuze and Transmission both worked the same way, so I didn't realize there was an alternative.
    – Dov
    Nov 29, 2009 at 13:14

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.