Open sourceFree, no account, no ads

The torrent app made for your Mac.

OrbTorrent lives in your menu bar, keeps your downloads on your VPN, and stops fake downloads before they arrive. Underneath, qBittorrent's engine does the downloading.

Download for MacWatch the film

OrbTorrent's launch film, with music and no speech. It shows the orb and its panel in the menu bar, the library window, a magnet link that starts downloading, the VPN dropping and downloading stopping with it, a fake download held before it starts, and extensions checking every download. It ends on what OrbTorrent is: open source and native, with no ads and no account, and free for macOS 26 or later.

macOS 26 or later · Apple silicon and Intel

OrbTorrent on a Mac: the library window, with a download's files and its checks, and the panel opened from the orb in the menu bar, with live speeds and downloads

Works with what you already use

The orb

One look tells you how your downloads are doing.

The orb in your menu bar fills as your downloads progress, and changes colour when something needs you.

Downloading

ubuntu-26.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

1.30 GB of 6.48 GB · ↓ 2.3 MB/s

Your Mac
VPN
Peers

Normal connection · never used

Downloading through the VPNVPN dropped · downloading stopped

OrbTorrent asking about a new download. The Fake Download Check says it contains a program disguised as a video, and the buttons read Cancel and Download Anyway
OrbTorrent's Completed list: finished downloads such as Sintel and Tears of Steel, each sharing back

The library

A full Mac window, when you want one. Search, sort and group every download, select several at once, and look inside any of them.

Everything it does
A close-up of the library window: the search field and toolbar, the list of downloads, and the inspector showing the files of Tears of Steel, each checked

Extensions

Checks on every download. The Fake Download Check holds fakes before they arrive, and VirusTotal Scan looks at what finishes.

About extensions
OrbTorrent's Extensions page: the Fake Download Check before a download starts and VirusTotal Scan after it finishes, with their switches

Switching

Moving in takes a minute. Your downloads and settings come over from Transmission or qBittorrent, progress and all.

How switching works

Features

Thoughtful, all the way through.

The things you notice after a week of using it.

Under the hood

qBittorrent's engine, inside a native app.

OrbTorrent is written in Swift and SwiftUI. It bundles qBittorrent's engine, built from its released source and checked against its signature, and runs it in the background, where it only answers to your Mac. It reaches peers even when your internet provider shares one IP address between customers, by hole punching.
  • µTP
  • DHT
  • Peer exchange
  • Local peer discovery
  • Web seeds
  • Encryption
  • UPnP and NAT-PMP
  • Hole punching
How it's built

How it's built

App
Swift, SwiftUI, Liquid Glass
Engine
qBittorrent 5.2.3
libtorrent
1.2.20
Qt · OpenSSL · Boost
6.10.3 · 3.6.4 · 1.86.0
Between them
Web API on this Mac only
Extensions
A sandboxed host

Build your own

Write an extension in TypeScript, or in a sentence.

Extensions look at a download before it starts, or act on it when it finishes. Each runs in a sandbox, and can only reach the files and sites it lists. 
$ npm create @orbtorrent/extension@latest size-guard
$ npm test
$ npm run dev

Or describe what you want, and a coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor writes it, tests it and tries it on your downloads. Nothing runs until you allow it.

Read the docs About extensions
src/check.ts
import { Download, Result, getPreferenceValues } from "@orbtorrent/api";

const gigabyte = 1_000_000_000;

/** Runs when a download's files are known, before any of it downloads. */
export default async function check(download: Download): Promise<Result> {
  const { limit } = getPreferenceValues();
  const size = (download.size / gigabyte).toFixed(1);
  if (download.size > Number(limit) * gigabyte) {
    // "failed" holds the download until you start it.
    return { status: "failed", summary: `It's ${size} GB, over your limit` };
  }
  return { status: "passed", summary: `${size} GB, within your limit` };
}

Privacy

It knows nothing about you.

Your library, settings and passwords stay on your Mac. It connects only to the peers and trackers of what you download and a few addresses it tells you about, and counts Macs without an ID.

Account
None
Analytics
Anonymous counts
Crash reports
None
Everything it connects to and counts

Open source

Free. No ads. Ever.

OrbTorrent is free software. Read every line, build it yourself, or help make it better. There's nothing to buy, and no account to make.

Price
Free
Licence
GNU GPL 3.0 or later
Extension SDK
MIT
Source codeContribute

Questions

Good questions.

More in the full FAQ, or write to help@orbtorrent.com.

Is OrbTorrent free?

Yes. OrbTorrent is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License. There are no ads, no account and nothing to buy.

Is it legal to use?

Using BitTorrent is legal. It's how Linux, open films and large public datasets are shared. What you download is up to you: download and share only what you have the right to.

How does it use qBittorrent?

OrbTorrent bundles qBittorrent's engine, built from its released source, and runs it in the background. It talks to the engine through qBittorrent's Web API, which only accepts connections from your Mac. OrbTorrent isn't affiliated with or endorsed by the qBittorrent project.

Which Macs does it run on?

Any Mac with macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, with Apple silicon or Intel. It's one universal app.

Does it work with my VPN?

Yes. Turn on Only download through a VPN, and OrbTorrent uses only the VPN's connection, stopping if the VPN drops. It finds VPN apps and tunnels such as Tunnelblick and WireGuard, picks up forwarded ports from VPNs that use NAT-PMP and from Private Internet Access, and uses a reserved port, as AirVPN and Windscribe give you, once you enter it.

Does OrbTorrent collect any data?

Only anonymous counts, never an ID. Its daily check for updates says which version it is, your version of macOS, the kind of Mac, the week it was installed and how often it quit unexpectedly, so we know how many Macs use it and whether a version has a problem. Nothing about how you use it is sent. There's no account and no crash reporting, Settings shows exactly what's sent and turns it off, and the privacy page lists everything.

Get OrbTorrent.

Free for macOS 26 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel.

Download for MacSwitching from another app?