Torrent client · macOS
Your torrents run on your server. Not on your Mac.
TorrBridge puts the BitTorrent client on a VPS you own. Your Mac talks only to that one machine, over an encrypted connection it verifies by hand — and never opens a connection to a peer.
Setup
Three steps.
-
01
Get a VPS and log in as root
Any Ubuntu server.
-
02
Run this
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kvaggone/torrbridge-agent/main/install.sh | sudo bash -
03
Paste the key into the app
It prints one key. Paste it into TorrBridge and you're done.
How it works
Two programs, and nothing in between.
On the server
One static Go binary holds the whole BitTorrent client: DHT, PEX, trackers, µTP, protocol encryption, BitTorrent v1 and v2. It runs under systemd as an unprivileged user, survives a reboot, and keeps downloading whether or not your Mac is awake.
- binary
- ~24 MB, no libc dependency
- ports
- 7443/tcp API · 51413 tcp+udp BitTorrent
- state
- SQLite, in /var/lib/torrbridge
On your Mac
The app is an HTTPS client and nothing more. It has no BitTorrent engine and no SSH client, so there is no path by which your Mac could reach a peer. Finished files arrive in parallel chunks that resume after a dropped connection, a closed laptop or a reboot.
- transfer
- HTTP range requests, resumable
- secrets
- token and fingerprint in the Keychain
- sandbox
- writes only to the folder you pick
Security
Two trusted parties: your server, and your Mac.
There is no TorrBridge service, because there is no TorrBridge server. Nobody operates anything between you and your VPS, so there is no account, no telemetry, and no database of who downloaded what — not because we promise to delete it, but because it is never created.
Certificate pinning, not a certificate authority
The agent serves a self-signed certificate — no domain, no DNS, no Let's Encrypt. The app accepts exactly the certificate named in your key and never consults system trust. A substituted certificate is refused even if some authority vouched for it.
The server cannot read its own token
Only a SHA-256 of the token is in the config the agent reads. The plaintext sits in a root-only file, so the unprivileged process that faces the network never holds it.
No SSH credentials, ever
Setup is a command you run yourself. The app never asks for a server password or an SSH key, and contains no SSH client to use one with.
Read it before you run it
The installer and the agent are public. The binary you download is checksummed against the release you can read, and it is built in the open by CI from that source.
Before you start
What you need, and what this isn't.
Requirements
- server
- Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04, x86_64 or ARM, root access
- disk
- 2 GB free, plus room for what you download
- mac
- macOS 14 Sonoma or later
Check your provider's rules about BitTorrent traffic first. Some hosts allow it and some send abuse notices, and that is between you and them.
Honest limits
You bring your own VPS; there is nothing to rent from us. A torrent finishes on the server before it starts coming to your Mac — streaming while it downloads is planned, not shipped. There is no search, no catalogue and no index: TorrBridge downloads what you give it and nothing else.