Torrents

MacGet downloads torrents in the same queue as everything else. They share the concurrency limit, pause/resume/cancel, priorities, and quiet-hours scheduling with your HTTP and media downloads.

Turning it on

The first time you add a torrent — or from Settings → Torrents — MacGet shows a one-time explanation covering uploading, the listening port, and your responsibility for what you transfer. Accept it and MacGet installs the engine.

The aria2 engine

MacGet uses aria2 for BitTorrent, and installs it with Homebrew rather than bundling it:

brew install aria2

Unlike the yt-dlp and ffmpeg binaries that ship inside the app, aria2 links against five system libraries (openssl@3, libssh2, c-ares, sqlite, gettext), so bundling it would mean shipping and re-signing a pile of dylibs. Installing it separately is simpler and more robust — and it means MacGet never redistributes GPL software.

If Homebrew isn't installed, MacGet shows the command to run yourself and a Try Again button.

The engine runs as a single background process shared by all your torrents. Its control channel is bound to 127.0.0.1 on a random port with a fresh secret each launch, so nothing off your machine can reach it. It starts when you add your first torrent and stops when the last one finishes.

Adding torrents

• Magnet links — paste into the Add sheet (⌘N), drop onto the window, or click one in your browser (MacGet registers as a magnet: handler, ranked as an alternate so it won't hijack an existing torrent client).
• .torrent files — drag onto the MacGet window, or add the file's URL.

A magnet shows Preparing… while it fetches metadata from the swarm. Once that resolves, the real name, size, and file list appear.

Seeding

By default MacGet seeds until it reaches a ratio of 1.0 or 60 minutes, whichever comes first. Both are configurable in Settings → Torrents, along with an upload speed cap.

Setting either limit to 0 disables it; setting both to 0 stops the moment the download finishes. Seeding rows show a live share ratio and both transfer rates.

Choosing files

For a torrent with more than one file, right-click the row and pick Choose Files…. Deselecting files applies immediately — MacGet restarts the torrent so the engine picks up the new selection — and the sheet shows the total size of what you've kept.

Network settings

Port changes take effect the next time the engine starts.

Resuming

Torrents resume across restarts. Progress lives in the control file the engine keeps beside your partial data, and MacGet re-adds each torrent from its own queue on launch — so your queue stays the single source of truth.

What MacGet doesn't do

MacGet has no torrent search, no index, and no built-in trackers. It downloads what you give it. You're responsible for having the right to the material you transfer.