Guide

How to use Torrent Live.

Everything here assumes no technical knowledge. If a step mentions something you have never heard of, it is explained where it appears.

For version 0.2.1

Adding your first torrent

There are four ways in, and they all end up in the same place.

Paste a magnet link. A magnet link is a line of text starting with magnet:? that identifies a file without containing it. Copy one, click the long box at the top of the window, paste, and press Add.
Drag a .torrent file onto the app window. A .torrent is a small file describing a bigger one.
Double-click a .torrent anywhere on your computer. Torrent Live registers itself as the app that opens them.
Click a magnet link in your browser. It hands off to the app automatically.

Each torrent becomes one row. The bar in the middle fills as it downloads — green while downloading, blue once it is complete and sharing back with others.

Watching before it finishes

This is the point of the app. You do not have to wait for a download to complete before playing it.

Click a torrent row to select it. Its files appear in the panel across the bottom.
Click the video file. It starts playing in the panel on the right.
Skip ahead freely. Jumping to a later point tells the app to fetch that part next, so it fills in what you actually need rather than working through the file in order.

If you skip to a part that has not arrived yet, playback pauses while it is fetched. How long depends on how many people are sharing the file.

Watching on your phone, tablet or TV

Torrent Live can serve what it is downloading to any other device in your home — a phone, an iPad, a smart TV, another laptop. Nothing needs installing on the other device. It just opens a web address.

In the app, look at the bottom of the left-hand column for Video Server. It reads loopback only, meaning only this computer can see it.
Click Share on LAN…. The line above turns green and shows an address like 192.168.1.42:8842. That is your computer's address on your home network.
VIDEO SERVER
■ 192.168.1.42:8842
[ Stop sharing on LAN ] [ Copy web UI link ]
On the other device, open any web browser and type that address in, exactly as shown, including the number after the colon.
You will see a list of everything you are downloading. Tap a video and it plays.

A shortcut for typing. Copy web UI link puts the address on your clipboard, so you can message it to yourself rather than typing it into a TV remote.

There is no password.

While sharing is on, anything on your network can open that address, see the name of everything you are downloading, and watch all of it. There is no login and no code to enter — that is deliberate, so it works on a television without a keyboard.

Your router still blocks the outside world, so this is not on the internet. The reach is exactly whatever is already on your wi-fi. That is fine at home; it is not fine on shared, office or hotel wi-fi. Sharing is off every time the app starts, and switching it off takes one click.

Formats that normally will not play in a browser

Many downloads are .mkv files, which no web browser can open on its own. Torrent Live repackages them as they play, so they work anyway — usually without touching the video quality at all. You may notice a few seconds before the picture appears the first time; that is the repackaging starting up.

The seek bar grows as it works. You can drag back to anything already prepared, but not forward past it.

Subtitles

Subtitles come from three places, and all of them appear in the same menu in the player.

Built into the video file. Most releases carry several languages inside the video itself. These are found automatically.
Separate .srt files downloaded alongside the video. Also automatic; English is switched on by default when it exists.
Searched for online, using the Find subtitles button on the watching page. This is the only one that needs setting up — see below.

Once a subtitle has been downloaded it is kept, so it is there next time — including on your other devices. Download it once on the laptop and it is already attached when you open the same film on the TV.

Getting an OpenSubtitles key

The subtitle search uses OpenSubtitles, a long-running community subtitle database. It is free, but it asks every application to identify itself with a key — a line of letters and numbers unique to you. You only do this once.

It works the way VLC does: rather than searching by filename, the app calculates a fingerprint from the video itself, so what comes back is timed to your exact copy instead of drifting out of sync.

Go to opensubtitles.com and create a free account. An email address and a password is all it needs.
Confirm your email, then sign in.
Visit opensubtitles.com/en/consumers. You must be signed in or it will send you to the login page first. This page is where you register an application.
Create a new consumer. It asks for a name — anything will do, Torrent Live is fine. It is only a label so you can recognise it later.
It gives you an API key, a string like Xk39fA2bQ7mZ.... Copy it.
Back in Torrent Live, find Subtitle Finder at the bottom of the left-hand column and click Add API key…. Paste the key in and press Save, then Test to check it works.
SUBTITLE FINDER
■ key ••••7fA2
[ Change credentials… ]

The optional part

The same panel has boxes for your OpenSubtitles username and password. You can leave them blank — the key alone works. Filling them in raises how many subtitles you may download per day, which matters if you use it a lot. A key on its own allows a handful daily.

Your key and password are stored on your own computer, readable only by your user account, and are never shown back to you once saved.

Using it

Open a video in the web view, on any device.
Choose a language from the dropdown next to Find subtitles, then click it.
Results appear as a list. Ones marked hash were matched against your exact copy and will be in sync. Ones marked name were matched on the title, and may need nudging.
Click one and it loads. Switch between them from the player's own subtitle menu.

Where your files go

Completed downloads land in a Torrent Live folder inside your Downloads folder. To change it, use Change folder… at the bottom of the left-hand column. The choice is remembered.

Torrents you have open are also remembered. Close the app and reopen it, and everything is back where it was — still downloading, still paused, or still sharing. Nothing is downloaded twice.

Removing a torrent asks whether you also want to delete the files. Press Cancel to take it out of the list but keep what it downloaded.

When something does not work

The address on my phone does not load

Both devices must be on the same wi-fi network. Guest networks are usually separate.
Check the app still shows a green address. Sharing switches off every time the app restarts.
Include the :8842 at the end. Without it the browser tries the wrong door.
Your computer's address can change when it reconnects to wi-fi. If it stopped working after a restart, check the app for the current one.

The video takes a long time to start

The app has to fetch the beginning of the file before it can play anything. On a download that has barely started, or one with few people sharing it, that takes as long as it takes. Once it has begun, it is quick from then on.

Nothing downloads at all

A torrent with no one sharing it cannot download, and no client can fix that. The peers count in the top-right tells you how many people you are connected to. Zero means there is nobody to download from.

macOS says the app cannot be opened

The app is not signed with a paid Apple certificate, so macOS stops it the first time. Right-click the app and choose Open — that offers an Open button which a normal double-click does not. You only do this once.

Windows shows a blue warning

Same reason. Choose More info, then Run anyway. It installs for your user only and never asks for an administrator password.

Still stuck

Everything about how the app works is described in more technical detail in the source repository, and problems can be reported there.