Best Torrent Client for Mac in 2026: 5 Options Compared

On Windows, picking a torrent client mostly comes down to features. On a Mac, three questions come first. Is the app still maintained for macOS? Does it run natively on Apple silicon? Will macOS let you open it without a fight? Several clients that are excellent on other systems fall short on at least one of those.

This guide covers the clients that are worth installing on a Mac in 2026, how to deal with Gatekeeper's warnings, how to make magnet links open in the app you chose, and what to use if you mainly want to watch something. For the cross-platform comparison, including Windows-only and ad-supported clients, see the best torrent clients overall.

Quick picks

Best for most Mac users: Transmission. A native Mac app with sensible defaults, no ads, a universal binary, and regular releases.
Best for power users: BiglyBT. Open source and ad-free, with a dedicated Apple silicon installer and more settings than anything else on this list.
Best if you rely on RSS rules or search plugins: qBittorrent. It works, but the Mac build trails Windows and Linux, and it fails macOS's Gatekeeper check.
Best if you want one download manager for everything: Folx. It handles ordinary downloads as well as torrents. It is closed source, and the useful extras are in the paid version.
Best for watching video: TorrentPlayer. A streaming player with separate Apple silicon and Intel builds. It is not a download manager, and it is an early preview.

Mac torrent clients compared

App	Cost and licence	Apple silicon	Homebrew cask	Mac version	Best for
Transmission	Free, GPL	Universal	Installs	4.1.3	Most people
qBittorrent	Free, GPL	Not stated	Disabled	5.2.3	RSS and search
BiglyBT	Free, GPLv2	Universal, or a separate Apple silicon build	Installs, needs Java	4.1.0.0	Power users
Folx	Free; PRO from $19.95	Not stated	Installs	5.34	All-round downloading
TorrentPlayer	Free, MIT or Apache-2.0	Separate Apple silicon and Intel builds	None	0.1.0 preview	Watching video

Versions are the latest Mac releases as of 20 October 2026. The Homebrew column is a useful shortcut. Since 1 September 2026, Homebrew has disabled casks for apps that fail macOS's Gatekeeper check, so "Installs" means brew install --cask still works, and "Disabled" means Homebrew dropped the app because it fails that check.

The options in detail

Transmission

Transmission's Mac app is written for macOS rather than ported from another toolkit, and it shows: it looks and behaves like the apps that came with your Mac. The download page lists it as "Apple Silicon Native", and since version 4.0 in 2023 it has been a universal binary, so the same app runs natively on Intel Macs too. It needs macOS 11 or later. Version 4.1.3 came out on 30 June 2026, and the app updates itself.

What you get is a clean torrent list, an inspector for detail, speed limits with a schedule, a watch folder, a blocklist, and a built-in web interface you can switch on to manage downloads from another device. What you do not get is a search tab or an RSS reader. Sequential downloading arrived in 4.1.0, but as of 4.1.3 it is set through the configuration file and the command-line tools rather than a button in the Mac app. The qBittorrent vs Transmission comparison goes through those differences feature by feature.

Install it from the Transmission website or with Homebrew:

brew install --cask transmission

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is the most complete free client on Windows and Linux, and many Mac users want it for the same reasons: RSS feeds with download rules, search plugins, categories with their own save folders, and sequential download from the right-click menu.

On the Mac, read the project's own warning first. Its download page says: "The macOS version is barely supported, because we don't have active macOS developers/contributors." The Mac download needs macOS 13 or later, and it was still on 5.2.3 when we checked, while Windows and Linux had 5.3.0, released on 19 October 2026. The page offers a standard disk image and a variant built on libtorrent 2.0, and it does not say whether either runs natively on Apple silicon. You can check after installing (see the Apple silicon section below).

Homebrew disabled its qBittorrent cask on 1 September 2026, because the app fails macOS's Gatekeeper check. In practice, expect to download the disk image from qbittorrent.org yourself and to approve the app in Privacy & Security the first time you open it. The project signs its downloads with PGP, so you can confirm the file is genuine before you do.

If you depend on RSS rules or search plugins, qBittorrent is still a reasonable choice on a Mac. If you do not, Transmission is less hassle.

BiglyBT

BiglyBT, a fork of the old Azureus/Vuze client, is the feature-heavy option. Swarm merging, I2P support, tags, seeding rules, a plugin catalogue and a Play Now button that starts playback while a file downloads are all built in, with no ads or installer offers. The main roundup covers those features in more depth.

For Macs it offers a universal installer (macOS 10.12 or later), a separate Intel installer, and a dedicated Apple silicon installer. It is a Java application, and Homebrew's cask, which uses the universal installer, tells you to install Java 8 or later first. Version 4.1.0.0 was released in May 2026.

The trade-off is the interface. BiglyBT has more settings than any other client here, and it looks busier than a native Mac app. If you like tuning things, that is the point.

Folx

Folx, from Electronic Team, is a Mac download manager that also downloads torrents and magnet links. It is closed source. The free version handles torrents; the PRO version, priced from $19.95, adds manual and automatic speed control, scheduled downloads, splitting ordinary downloads into up to 20 threads, and a built-in torrent search. Version 5.34 was released on 3 June 2026. Its product page does not say whether it runs natively on Apple silicon.

Folx makes sense if you want one app for browser downloads and torrents alike. If you only need torrents, the free open-source clients above do more without a paid tier.

Clients that are a poor fit on a Mac

Deluge. Its installation docs say there is no official macOS installer, and Homebrew disabled its old Deluge cask for failing the Gatekeeper check. Deluge is better on a home server; see the Linux and home server guide.
Tixati. It is available for Windows, Linux and Android only.
uTorrent and BitTorrent. Both have Mac versions, but the free tiers are ad-supported and removing the ads costs a yearly fee. The main roundup has their current prices.

Apple silicon: what to check

Apple silicon Macs run apps built for Intel through Rosetta, a translation layer. That has worked well for years, but it has an end date. Apple says Rosetta remains available through macOS 27, and from macOS 28 it will only be available for certain older games. An Intel-only torrent client will stop working on those Macs.

Two quick checks tell you where you stand:

Your Mac. Choose Apple menu, then About This Mac. A Mac with Apple silicon shows an item labelled Chip (for example, Apple M2). An Intel Mac shows Processor instead.
The app. Select it in the Finder and press Command-I. The Kind line says Application (Universal), Application (Apple silicon), or Application (Intel). Universal and Apple silicon apps run natively. If it says Intel, look for a newer build.

Transmission and BiglyBT document native builds. qBittorrent and Folx do not say on their download pages, so use the Kind check after installing.

Gatekeeper warnings and unsigned apps

Gatekeeper is the part of macOS that checks apps you download. By default, macOS Catalina and later require software from outside the App Store to be signed by an identified developer and notarized by Apple. When an app fails that check, the first launch is blocked with a warning.

The old shortcut, Control-clicking the app and choosing Open, no longer works. Apple removed it in macOS Sequoia, and you now approve the app in System Settings:

Open the app once and close the warning.
Open System Settings, click Privacy & Security, and scroll down.
Click Open Anyway next to the message about the app.
When the warning appears again, click Open.

After that, macOS saves the app as an exception and it opens normally from then on.

Only do this for apps you downloaded from the project's own website or GitHub releases page. Where a project publishes checksums or signatures, check the file first. In Terminal, shasum -a 256 followed by the file's path prints a SHA-256 checksum you can compare with the published one. qBittorrent publishes PGP signatures, and TorrentPlayer's releases include a SHA256SUMS.txt file.

Make magnet links open in the right app

macOS hands a clicked magnet link to whichever app has registered for it. On a Mac you normally set this inside the torrent app rather than in System Settings:

Transmission: in its settings window, open the General pane and click Set Default Application next to Accept magnet links.
qBittorrent: open its settings, go to Behavior, and under File association tick Use qBittorrent for magnet links. The checkbox just above does the same for .torrent files.

For .torrent files, the Finder offers its own method: select one, choose File, then Get Info, pick an app under Open with, and click Change All.

Your browser may still ask before it hands the link over, and Firefox keeps its own setting for magnet links. The guide to opening magnet links covers the browser side and what to do when nothing happens.

Streaming on a Mac

A download manager can play a video before it finishes, but it takes some setup. In qBittorrent, right-click a torrent and turn on Download in sequential order and Download first and last pieces first, then open the file in a media player such as VLC. BiglyBT's Play Now button does a similar job inside one app. In Transmission 4.1.3, sequential mode is only available from the configuration file or the command line. The catch is skipping ahead: jump past what has downloaded and the player has to wait, because the client is still fetching pieces in order from the start.

A streaming player is built for that weak spot. TorrentPlayer is free and open source, and its macOS builds come in two versions on the GitHub releases page: one for Apple silicon and one for Intel, so pick the one that matches your Mac's chip. You press play and it starts in seconds. Skip to any point and it fetches that exact spot first, sending the most urgent pieces to the fastest peers and asking a second peer for the same blocks so one slow peer cannot stall playback. In its own benchmark on a public swarm of about 600 peers, the median time from a skip to data being ready was 0.70 seconds. Public swarms vary, so take that as an example rather than a promise.

Know its limits before you install it:

It is an early preview, and the Mac builds are not signed yet, so you will go through the Gatekeeper steps above.
The built-in player cannot yet decode some audio formats, including AC-3 and DTS. For a film with one of those soundtracks, a regular client plus VLC is the better route for now.
It is not a download manager. There is no RSS, no scheduler and no remote web UI.

It has a queue that downloads ahead while you watch, no telemetry or accounts, and optional WireGuard or SOCKS5 routing with a kill switch. A sensible Mac setup is TorrentPlayer for watching and Transmission for everything else. The torrent streaming apps comparison covers the other options.

Whatever you use, stick to things you have the right to download: Blender's open movies such as Big Buck Bunny and Sintel, public-domain films from the Internet Archive, LibriVox audiobooks, or Linux ISOs. BitTorrent itself is legal; downloading copyrighted material without permission usually is not.

Sources

Checked on 20 October 2026.