this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Hello all,

I'm having some issues that probably stem from lack of education on computers, so if some kind soles out there can give me some assistance I'd very much appreciate it.

My immediate goal is to take all my torrent data from my MacBook qbittorrent (latest version) to my old laptop that I just loaded ElementaryOS on. This way I can have my files seeding at all times instead of when I have my mac up and running. I have all the actual media on a external SSD so I don't have to or want to redownload all the torrents on the Elementary pc.

I've done some basic reading but all the articles and youtube vids I see are just migrating from one windows to another windows machine. Duplicating the data in the app data and drag and dropping it. I've even seen the recommendation to have the same version of qbittorrent to make the swap easy. Now my under educated mind is confused on going from Mac to Linux since its a completely different OS and therefore a different "version" of qbit. I imagine its possible but I'm feeling out of my depth.

I'd really love if someone can point me in the right direction if they can.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

On the Mac, open qbittorrent, select all torrents in the client, and export them as torrent files or magnets, whichever you prefer.

Copy all the torrent/magnet files to a thumb drive or something and copy them to the elementary laptop.

On the elementary laptop, start without an internet connection. Connect the external drive with all the downloaded files, mount it if elementary doesn't auto mount it, and note the path.

Open qbittorrent.

Set the default save path in qbittorrent to the path of the mounted drive with all of your downloaded files.

If you want to do it in bulk, now add all the torrent files to QBittorrent. You may have to verify the file location for the torrents to make sure it sees the files on the drive.

Once you're certain all the loaded torrents are pointing to the save path for the files, you can close qbittorrent, connect the laptop to the internet, and relaunch qbittorrent.

It should verify all the files it finds for the torrents, which can take some time if you have a lot of torrents, and once verified it'll automatically start seeding

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I followed your guide and everything works perfectly now! Thanks so much. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a follow up question since you seem wise in the ways of wizardry.

I’m hoping to make this old laptop a jellyfin server as well. And this may seem a dumb question but I’d be remiss not to ask. I’m planning to leave this plugged in all the time. I already turned off the sleep/suspend feature. Is it safe to keep the battery in? To remove the battery I’d have to open it up and remove it and I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle.

Again thanks for your previous advice and if you have the time to answer this double thanks

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Awesome! Glad it worked. I'm no expert regarding the battery, but it should be okay. Lots of people use laptops as servers with them plugged in all the time. Just keep an eye on it and if you see any signs of swelling or excessive heat, pull and/or replace the battery.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Again much appreciated. You amazing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Happy to help!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thank you soooo much for the detailed reply! This sounds easy so I’m feeling a bit stupid now lol. I’m going to try this immediately!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Goid luck!!

That's the process I've used when switching machines for seeding, and it works great, just takes time for it to recheck all the files.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

While you’re at it consider using docker.