When you have some torrent where there is a huge collection of files only some of which you want right now, but maybe you will come back to it later to get something else.

Example: This is a listing for torrents of audiobooks from The Eye. (Alphabetically by author, one torrent per letter.)

So I don't want to download every audiobook ever. I selectively choose which to download. Then the torrent is "completed" when those are done. But I want to keep them around because maybe later I want something else. I just leave them in the queue?

In the torrent apps I've used, they seem to get confused by these. If you move the downloaded file to a proper location in your filesystem, then it is having a "missing files" error, unable to seed, and the torrent is in error state. But if you leave the obtained files, it's still in the "not yet downloaded" directory forever.

Wondering if there is some smart way of managing this, or what?

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[–] SexualPolytope 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I usually just let the files be where they are and cp -l to a directory where I can manage them however I want. This creates hardlinks, so you don't use up any extra space.

[–] laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

hmmm I just tried this out and using cp -lr on a directory. I appears to have recreated the whole directory structure, hardlinking the files; because directories can't be hardlinked. Is that correct? If so wow.

[–] SexualPolytope 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yes, it just does what cp does. Only difference is that it makes hardlinks instead of copies. Unless you're using a COW filesystem, this might be better for most situations.

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