Ever been away from your home computer and thought: “Man, I would like to start that torrent download now so it’ll be done when I get home later.” ? Well, now there’s a way to drop .torrent files into a location on your computer and have it automatically begin downloading where you have utorrent running. uTorrent watches a directory for torrents and dropbox gets them there. I give my friend Jake credit for this one… this came naturally to him when he installed Dropbox.
The process is two fold. First, install and register a Dropbox account from www.getdropbox.com. Dropbox lets you sync up to 2G of files for free across all of your computers. It reminds me somewhat of an automated version control system that all your computers are constantly watching for changes. Just change a file on any of your computers and the change is synced across all of them.
Once you have installed Dropbox and registered for an account, create a folder named ‘Torrents to download’ within the ‘Dropbox’ folder you now have in ‘My Documents’. Repeat the sign-up and download process on the computer you want to host the torrent downloads and link it to the same account. Try putting files in from one computer and watching them pop out on the other end. You can also use the online web interface by logging in at www.getdropbox.com to upload a file into your Dropbox… or pull one out.
Install utorrent from the official site here; then open the preferences screen (options -> preferences). Choose directories from the left side menu and then check the box labeled ‘automatically load .torrents from’. Specify your Dropbox folder you created earlier: ‘Torrents to download’. Click the ‘delete loaded .torrents’ too if you like. It’s a neat feature.
Now, go to any computer where you have dropbox and just plop a torrent file in there. You’ll notice that if you checked the ‘delete loaded .torrents’ option it will go away moments later. Your other utorrent computer will catch the change, load the file into utorrent then delete it… that well then be synced back to you and the file will be removed right before your eyes. I strongly encourage looking at some of the other options within utorrent, too.
It’s true utorrent does have a web interface, but that would require you to open up firewall ports – ew! This method bypasses all that madness and your torrent files start instantly. I use it!
