When it comes to BitTorrent clients, there are a lot to choose from. After using uTorrent for a while I found myself looking for a lightweight (and ad-free) alternative. In some cases, you will find that a heavy desktop app can be replaced by a simple command line alternative and Transmission CLI offers just that.
May 25, 2020. Transmission works well on OSX and various distributions of Linux due to having interfaces natively developed for those operating systems instead of haphazardly ported. The Mac interface is written in Objective-C, uses dock badges and Growl notifications while the GTK+ interface follows GNOME Human Interface Guidelines and has support for popup. Jun 23, 2019.
Transmission is a fast, easy, and free BitTorrent client. It comes in several flavors: A native Mac OS X GUI application; GTK+ and Qt GUI applications for Linux, BSD, etc. Jul 03, 2020.
Transmission is a popular cross-platform BitTorrent client that comes in a variety of flavours, including native Mac and GTK+ versions with a desktop GUI familiar to anyone who has used uTorrent.
There is also a command line interface for Transmission which turned out to be perfect for my occasional BitTorrent requirements.
This guide will run you through the basic usage of the terminal client.
Installation
Transmission is the default BitTorrent client in many Linux distributions and transmission-cli can be found in most official repositories.
For OSX, Transmission CLI can be installed with the excellent package manager Homebrew:
The installation will include a set of command line utilities but for the scope of this tutorial we will cover just two of these: transmission-daemon and transmission-remote.
transmission-daemon
This is the Transmission client itself, when a Transmission session is started it will run quietly as a background process and can be controlled with the remote utility.
transmission-remote
This is the control utility used for adding and removing torrents.
Configuration
Out of the box, the default settings should be fine for simple use. Although one thing you may want to update is the download directory for completed torrents. This can be set with the following command:
To confirm the directory location you can run this command which will print out the current settings:
For a full list of available configuration options, check out the manual page.
Start
The first thing you will want to do is start the Transmission session, you can do this by simply running the daemon:
Adding a Torrent
To add a torrent you will use transmission-remote and pass the torrent file location as a parameter with the -a option. The file location can either be a local path to a downloaded torrent file or a direct URL to the online location.
Magnet links are also supported and can be added in exactly the same way.
Download Status
The status of your downloads can be checked at any time by using the list -l command:
This will display a list of loaded torrents and the status of each download.
Removing a Torrent
It is always good to seed a torrent for as long as possible, but when your housemate is knocking on your door and complaining about the bandwidth, here is how to remove the torrent.
Transmission Download Torrent
In the download list output you can see that each loaded torrent has an ID in the left-hand column. You can use this ID to select a torrent by using the -t command followed by -r to remove.
You can select multiple torrents by passing comma separated ID’s.
Alternatively you can also pass all to remove everything.
Final Tip
Tip: alias transmission-remote to tsm
To save a bit of time I can recommend setting up a shorter alias for transmission-remote:
Now you can spend less time typing and more time downloading.
I hope this guide can encourage you to try out the command line version of Transmission and help you get started with the basics.
The bittorrent client alternative Transmission, which was previously available only on Mac and Linux platforms is now out there for Windows users. Using Transmission, it is now possible for Windows users to download torrent files with much ease. It is safe, fast and easy to use application with no pop-up ads, flash ads, toolbars or anything else. It has remained very popular among Mac users. Follow the steps below to download, install and run the application in Windows.
How to Install the Mac Torrent Client, Transmission, on Windows 10
First, download the installation files directly from the links given below. 32 bit and 64 bit versions are available.
Or you can download it from the Transmission website.
After downloading, run the Setup Wizard. This might take a few minutes.
Open the application once the installation is complete.
Paste the URL of the torrent file that you wish to download.
Alternatively, browse the torrent file from your device by clicking on the Open a torrent option as shown in the image below.
That’s it! The download will start. The status of the download can be seen in the main window. You can pause, cancel and prioritise the file you are downloading. Also, to begin a new download, just follow the same steps given above.
Transmission Bittorrent Mac
Transmission ensures privacy as it has full encryption, DHT and Magnetic Link support. They don’t track users and are completely ad free. Transmission has very low memory requirements compared to most other BitTorrent clients. So check it out now!