Torrent sharing consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games with other peers. The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers. The Bittorrent client was actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface BitTorrent for Mac appears as a friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. In fact, the latest version looks uncannily like uTorrent although the functionality is nowhere near as good unfortunately.

Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your Mac, open it up inside BitTorrent for Mac and let the client do its job. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download. However, a frequent complaint with BitTorrent for Mac is that downloads rarely start and when they do, they can be notoriously unstable.

You can improve things slightly by changing the settings of multiple torrent downloads but there are few diagnostic tools to help you work out the problem. At the very least, you should choose the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, Bittorrent is very simplistic. And compared to uTorrent, it doesn't work half as well despite similarities in appearance. It doesn’t provide many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the BitTorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

Note that BitTorrent gives you access to a huge number of digital files and should only be used for sharing legal P2P content.

BitTorrent for Mac may have once been a good starting point in the P2P world but there are now several other clients which are far more effective.

Download BitTorrent for Mac 7.4.1 in Softonic

uTorrent for Mac is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client that allows you to connect to P2P networks.

uTorrent for Windows has been a big success on PCs for years and uTorrent for Mac includes all the same features that made it such a success. It's lightweight, extremely easy to use, very fast, requires no configuration and generally just makes downloading torrents very easy. If you have used the Windows version, the main difference you'll notice is that uTorrent for Mac is slightly stripped down compared to the Windows version.

For example, down the left hand side of uTorrent you have all the same menus that you have in Windows that allow you to select exactly what you see in the uTorrent window. You can choose to view only those downloads that have completed, those that are currently downloading, those that are active and finally those that are inactive. Of course, you can also choose to view all of these at the same time too.

However, along the top of the interface, some of the controls that you find in Windows have been removed such as the button for RSS downloads, the create your own torrent wizard button and a preferences button. Preferences can be accessed via the menu bar although there is no RSS downloader or create your own torrent wizard unfortunately.

Everything else is the same as you get in uTorrent 's Windows version including a detailed stats windows giving you details of your download which you can toggle on and off via the info symbol on the top right of the interface. You'll also find the search box which simply takes you to a Google search results page.

The preferences dialog offers the same controls as in Windows with options to limit the bandwidth uTorrent uses, network settings and BitTorrent settings. Most importantly, downloads in uTorrent for Mac are lightening quick (if you have plenty of seeds for your file) although of course, this will also depend on how fast your internet connection is. It takes little more than a few seconds for uTorrent to start finding seeds and get on with downloading your files.

Finally, the uTorrent website offers you several different skins to choose from, an extensive FAQ and a full guide to using uTorrent for beginners. There are few drawbacks to uTorrent but one problem is that there is no way to add or remove torrent components once they have started.

Note that uTorrent provides access to a huge number of files but should only be used for sharing legal digital content.

If you've used uTorrent in Windows, you won't be disappointed by uTorrent for Mac. If you've never used it, then give it a go and you may never go back to your old torrent client again.

Download uTorrent for Mac 1.8.4 in Softonic

This new version doesn't support OS X 10.4.11 anymore (although you can download the 10.4.11 version here) but brings many more improvements to an already solid release. You can set different priority levels for torrents and establish stall limit times. Transmission's speed limit mode, represented by a turtle icon at the bottom of the interface, is extremely useful if you're looking to control the amount of bandwidth you use for uploads and downloads. The option for anonymous connections has been removed in this latest version however.

Transmission has consistently improved over time, offering many more options to view your torrents. You can now filter your torrent list according to downloading, seeding, or paused. The client can also organize transfers by queue order, date added, name, process. Transmission also allows you to label, filter and sort torrents by groups and total activity. You can also encrypt your torrent activity in case you want it to stay private.

We really like the new interface, which blends in perfectly to the new Mac OS X Leopard. Transmission manages to display all the essential information without actually seeming crowded, which is no easy feat. The only little nag we'd have with it is that it doesn't offer as many advanced statistics as you'd find in Vuze.

Despite no advanced statistics, Transmission is a beautiful and incredibly intuitive torrent client for Mac.

Download Transmission 2.77 in Softonic

TVShows can however be configured to automatically open your preferred BitTorrent client to download the files with. The advantage of this is that you neither need to manually search or download torrent files or find a working RSS feed for each show.
TVShow is a preference pane app that allows you to simply select your subscriptions and set your preferences.
TVShows then uses a lightweight background process which automatically launches at a customized interval to check for new episodes.
You can choose your preferred quality settings (Normal, High or Very High) and TVShows will download the closest one available.
Te latest version will even download HD torrents. However, we found that getting TVShows to work properly wasn't easy. It failed to retrieve any torrent files after searching and this latest version gave the impression of still being a work in progress.

Download TVShows 2.0 b9 in Softonic

Tomato Torrent is a simple torrent client that uses up little memory.

The application is built on the original Bittorrent client, making it very stable, and offers a very similar interface. It also uses up very little memory, meaning that you can easily have it running in the background and still launch other applications. However, obviously, avoid having too many torrents connected if you don't want to use up all your bandwidth.

Tomato Torrent includes a quick resume function to launch downloads that had been put on pause. You can also set them to automatically stop at a certain seed ratio and set your own upload rate. Tomato Torrent also lets you easily create your own tracker, if you're interested in distributing your torrents.

Tomato Torrents supports AppleScripts, and if you know your way around them, you can really create your own customized torrent client.

Even though it does offer many features, it probably lacks all the advanced statistics you get in Azureus or the smart features of Tomato Torrent.

All in all though, Tomato Torrent makes for a very good, easy to use and stable torrent client for Mac.

Download Tomato Torrent 1.5.1 in Softonic

Clutch is a web UI for the excellent Transmission BitTorrent client on Mac.

It will allow you to access and control all your torrent downloads performed on one Mac from the web. The application is easy to work with. Once you've got Transmission running and are downloading torrents, install the bundle. Open that up and choose to start both the Daemon and WebUI from the Clutch menu. You'll have to set up a username and password and note down the url with which you can access your client from any computer connected to the web.

Once Clutch is working and configured, it's really easy to access your Transmission client from anywhere. You'll be able to do the usual set of commands like pause and resume, open, filter, and even check the information for each torrent. Unfortunately, Clutch is only based on the features of Transmission 0.82, so it won't show all the cool new features you get in the latest version. The interface also looks a bit outdated.

Even though it's not based on the latest version of Transmission, Clutch is a very useful WebUI to control your Transmission from the web.

Download Clutch 0.3 in Softonic

Torrent Station is a BitTorrent client exclusively written for Mac OS. It offers advanced features such as global and individual limits, queueing and folders. Give it a try!

Features:

User interface

• Made for Mac

• Drag'n'Drop

• Folders

Queueing

• Priority-based queueing

• Automatically stops seeding at a defined share ratio

Limits

• Global bandwidth limits

• Individual bandwidth limits

Download Torrent Station 1.0.1 in Softonic