From the About Transmission page:
Transmission has been built from the ground up to be a lightweight, yet powerful BitTorrent client. Its simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate tightly with whatever computing environment you choose to use. Transmission strikes a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat. Furthermore, it is free for anyone to use or modify.
This tutorial will guide you through the steps to install, setup and use Transmission to download files using BitTorrent.
- First up - download Transmission. The installation is simple - open the .dmg file and drag Transmission to your Applications folder. Launch it from there.
- Transmission will open. Don’t be fooled by it’s fairly simplistic interface - it had a lot of advanced features, and way less bloat than some other BitTorrent programs. To open a torrent, click the Open torrent files button (2nd from the left).
- Navigate to a .torrent file, select it and click Open
- A confirmation/information window will pop up. This window lists all of the files that you’ll be downloading as a part of the .torrent. If you remote the check mark next to a file (in the DL column, that file won’t be downloaded. When you’re ready to start downloading, click Add.
- After a few seconds, the Transmission icon in your Dock will display the download speed (blue) and the upload speed (green).
- Click the Shortcuts for changing global settings button in the bottom left corner of Transmission. From here you can alter a number of Transmissions settings/preferences.
- Click the Toggle the filter bar button (second from right), and the filter bar will appear. This allows you to quickly view which torrents are active, which ones are seeding, paused etc.
- With a torrent selected, click the Toggle the torrent inspector button (far right). This will bring up a window that provides detailed information on the torrent you’re downloading. By clicking the various tabs across the top of this window you can find out things like which Tracker you’re using, the peers you’re connected to, and some bandwidth related options.
- To view and change the Transmission preferences, select Transmission from the menu bar, and then Preferences… from the drop down list.
The General tab offers exactly what you’d expect - general preferences. Make any changes you see fit - though the defaults are fine.
- Click the Transfers tab. One of the neat features of Transmission can be found on this page - and it’s disabled by default, but enabling it is a piece of cake. If you want Transmission to automatically load any .torrent files as they’re downloaded, place a check in the box labeled Watch for torrent files in: and then select the folder you normally download torret files to.
- Now each time a .torrent is downloaded to that specified folder, and Transmission is running, the confirmation/Add window will appear automatically (as seen in the screenshot below).
- Back in the Transfers tab, select Management. From here you can set things like “stop transfer after seed ratio hits x”, the maximum number of active transfers etc.
- Click the Bandwidth tab. Here you can set the maximum upload and download speeds you want to use with Transmission. Removing the check marks from Download rate: and Upload rate: will tell Transmission to use the maximum bandwidth your connection allows.
Another neat feature of Transmission is that you can set bandwidth rates based on the time of day. If you use your PC for work during the day, and don’t want Transmission to “hog” all of your bandwidth while you’re trying to get important Internet related tasks done, set a lower transfer rate in the spaces provided, place a check in the Schedule Speed Limit between: box, and set the start and end times for this Transmission “throttle”.
- Click the Peers tab. Generally, the defaults here are good. If you have an insanely fast Internet connection (higher than cable or DSL), you can increase the Connection: numbers. Again, the defaults are good.
- And finally, click the Network tab. If you want to change the default port that Transmission uses, this is the spot to do it. If you do change the port, make sure your Firewall (or router) is set to use this new port.
- If you’d like to use Transmission as your default BitTorrent client (program) - and another one already is, select a .torrent file (any will do) and bring up its properties by clicking Apple Key+i. In the Open with: section, click the drop-down button, and select Other… from the menu.
- Navigate to Transmission in your Applications list. Select it, and click Add.
- Back in the properties/info window, click the Change All button.
- Click Continue when asked if you want to use Transmission to open all .torrent files.
Now each time you double-click a .torrent file (or open one directly from a web page), Transmission will launch.
- If you have Growl installed, Transmission will use it to notify you of completed downloads.
- If you quit Transmission with an active transfer still going, you’ll be notified that it will continue the next time you open Transmission.
- And that’s about it - have fun!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the great how-to-use tutorial on Transmission.
Really well done and easy to follow and quite user friendly.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the tip with mac-i command. I had installed Parallels and it was by default booting up XP for my utorrent. I had right clicked the file type, and check default, but checking CHANGE ALL is key.
Thanks again.
Hi Ross Mckillop, Would you please be so kind as to email me a copy of Transmission v. 1.22(the version used in the above tutorial). I’ve tried to download it from the web, but all that’s available is Transmission v. 140.
Happy Holidays!!
Cuco
I appreciate that someone put these instructions here, but these do not help someone brand new to torrents. I was told by another mac user that this was the best torrent, but i am already confused at step 3….”Navigate to a .torrent file, select it and click Open.” I don’t have any torrent files…I thought that was the purpose of using Transmission. Somebody able to help a complete Torrent virgin?
Thanks.
Yeah, ditto, im a bit clueless
when i select the torrent, it is asking me for the tracker adress?
i hae no idea what that is or how to find it,
so i cannot download any torrent i find????
please help
please email comments regarding torrent virgins. Thanks, I’m stumped on how to actually use bittorrent.
Please send me the know how on downloading torrents, as I also have no idea!
Add me to the list… my eyes glaze over every time I go into one of these tutorials, that take 30 minutes or more to read. By the time I get to the end of it, I’ve forgotten what I read earlier, and have to start all over again. It’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Sure, it’s simple! I’ve seen shorter tutorials on how to assemble a 135 piece model car. Will someone pul-ease stop inventing all these programs that take years off your life to understand, and if you finally get lucky, implement? All I want is some music and a movie! Somewhere out there right at this moment is a young genus type who is devising another way to make me hate being on a computer! We need to all stand up and say “I’m mad as hell - and I’m not going to take it anymore!!!”
Hi, I am also confuse by step three. I do not have any .torrent files and do not know how to get them. Can you please tell me what to do here? Thanks!!
I agree with all of the above. I too am a new torrent user and although this tutorial helped to shine some light on the subject I am still at a loss because I have only 1 torrent file which I downloaded previously using BitTorrent. I have since deleted that app because after reading various reviews it seemed that Transmission would be the best app for Mac users. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks : )
a million thanx for showing how to use transmission, easy and to the point. man! you are the best!…
h-
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