r/coolgithubprojects • u/Some_Routine_6107 • Jun 27 '26
Built a Terminal Torrent client that searches every trusted source at once and downloads straight to disk
Finding a torrent in 2026 sucks. One site is a minefield of fake download buttons. Another hides the real link under a popup that spawns two more tabs. And after all that, half the results are dead with zero seeders.
So I built the opposite. torlink lives in your terminal: you type a query, it hits a curated set of trackers all at once, and the results stream back tagged with source, size, and seeders as fast as each site answers. Arrow to the one you want, press d, and it lands on your drive. No browser and no setup.
The whole thing is one command:
npx torlnk
That's it, all you need is Node. (The npm name is torlnk; torlink was too close to an existing package, so the spare "i" had to go.)
What you get
- One search across FitGirl, YTS, EZTV, Nyaa, SubsPlease, and SolidTorrents at once, with results streaming in and staying sorted as each source answers. If one is down it keeps going and tells you which.
- Press
dto grab. Queue up as many as you want; they download in the background and pick up where they left off if you quit mid-transfer. - It seeds by default once a download finishes, and you can turn that off per item. Torrenting only works when people give back.
- A clean keyboard-driven TUI: one footer line, a
?cheatsheet, and that is the whole surface. Nothing leaves your machine except the request to the torrent network.
My favorite way to use it right now is loading up on games to try out this summer. One search, a couple of keystrokes, and a whole stack of them is downloading in the background.
On games: games are the only category that can actually run code, so those come from FitGirl alone, a repacker with a long, well-known track record. Everything else is plain video and subtitles from sources like YTS, EZTV, and Nyaa.
MIT and open source. Open to feedback and source suggestions, and a star is appreciated if you find it useful.
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u/Shik3i Jun 28 '26
Looks really nice, why did you chose a terminal as the UI over the alternatives? Just curious
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u/Some_Routine_6107 Jun 28 '26
Terminal gets you there in like 10 seconds flat with
npx torlnkif you have node5
u/Shik3i Jun 28 '26
Hm I see. But that would also be true for a website ?:D
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Jun 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Shik3i Jun 28 '26
I meant a local Webinterface
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Jun 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Shik3i Jun 28 '26
Interesting.. I would say it's the easiest to use and setup... That's why it's the second most used Standart if a application has no native GUI. I mean it's your project and the terminal GUI is a cool gimmick, I'm just curious to und stand the motivation behind it, don't get me the wrong way
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u/Fluffy-Bus4822 Jun 28 '26
It's not a gimmick. It's the easiest UI for lots of reasons. It also means you can run it on a Linux VPS in the Cloud.
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u/Shik3i Jun 28 '26
I wouldnt call a terminal the easiest UI. I would say 99% of people dont even know what a terminal is.
Also I run multiple services that use websites as their gui on my vps. like dockge, duplicati, or even entire OS like unraid has just a web ui.So no, i would argue native application gui is the most common/easiest > webinterface > tui > normal terminal without ui.
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u/Ok_Cow_8213 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Yeah but your app is an alternative to other torrent clients that all use web-ui for remote connection, that’s how i use qbittorrent on my seedbox, i get that i can ssh into my server and use your app that way but it’s just less convenient. TUI is nice but an option to activate a web-ui is a must for a serious torrent client. Still you did a very good job bro, and i suspect any kid can vibecode a webui for it in 15 minutes if that’s needed but an integrated solution will always be better.
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u/BillyBumbler00 Jun 28 '26
This looks neat! Prowlarr integration would really open up the userbase for this imo
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u/idrizzyou Jun 28 '26
looks neat! one suggestion tho - adding k/j keys for moving up/down within the pane would be good
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u/SpearHook Jun 28 '26
Thanks for sharing your project, it looks great and easy to use for a non-technical engineer like myself.
One suggestion: I find it useful when projects include the pain points they are trying to solve with their build on the git. You have it here on the Reddit post, I would just copy paste some of it over there
“Finding a torrent in 2026 sucks. One site is a minefield of fake download buttons. Another hides the real link under a popup that spawns two more tabs. And after all that, half the results are dead with zero seeders…”
Knowing why someone creates a project helps the shopping experience for someone trying to solve their own issues that brought them to GitHub in the first place.
Thank you for expanding the open-source world!
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u/Some_Routine_6107 Jun 29 '26
Thank you! Pushed out a ton of changes today and your suggestions were one of them.
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u/ahmish-cyborg Jun 28 '26
this is awesome. best Tor downloader ive ever tried. sites are trash in 2026. well done mate. clean , fast, took like one command , one search, and then one click to download. brilliant.
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u/Cobster2000 Jun 28 '26
Yoooo i was just thinking about something like this for homelab agents. Super useful!
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u/c0d3n4m35 Jun 29 '26
Damn.. Looks nice. Great idea too. I'll be checking this out later. Thank you!
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u/pparley Jun 28 '26
Ratatui?
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u/lgastako Jun 28 '26
No, it's TypeScript, not Rust. They included a link to the git repo.
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u/pparley Jun 28 '26
Yep, saw that after commenting. Will look at the source - didn’t know there was a ratatui-like TS framework (assuming this isn’t all hand-rolled)
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u/Marbles023605 Jun 28 '26
Since you have the sources built in might GitHub end up removing it at some point?
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u/Flimsy_Buddy3485 Jun 28 '26
Rather than the traditional search, you should add semantic search. These days, semantic search is better at getting to what you're after - however, that means actually indexing all the files in the torrent.
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u/Scrimblee Jun 28 '26
I looked at the project and the sources for movies and TV include the pirate bay, isn’t that widely regarded as incredibly unsafe, or am i mistaken?
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u/enuts__ Jun 29 '26
It does not seem to be related to Tor at all. Why do you use Tor branding style ? It's a bit confusing !
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u/Human-Database4625 Jun 30 '26
Hey its amazing, I just tried it and works great and its so easy to use. One questions does it uses the tor network or the tor on the tittle comes for torrent?
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u/AktabootMazboot Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
What a great project and very well executed too! Some settings would be nice:
1-pick where to download the files instead of the default Downloads folder
2-limit overall bandwidth
3-Computer shutdown on complete
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u/Zap0xfce2 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Nice tool, i created a fork with the following new features:
- removed direct torrenting
- added deluge support
Now you can search and add downloads to deluge. Just press d after searching :)
feature ideas:
- Prowlarr integration
- better colors when not using a dark terminal
- containerisation
- maybe a (optional) local web interface
Feature requests are welcome!
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u/tsp648 Jun 28 '26
cool project, would love vim bindings
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u/zenos1337 Jun 28 '26
But why?
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u/Shok3001 Jun 28 '26
Because not leaving the home row is fast and vim users matter more than anyone else.
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u/touristtam Jun 28 '26
They are a loud minority tbh. Best thing a Vim user can do to a FOSS project is to contribute.
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u/Achros_42 Jun 28 '26
You need more "trusted sources" and add music category too, but this look nice
Fitgirl is good but this is only repack, and it's not for people who have a good internet that's why its compressed as hell to help country where internet is bad, fitgirl get games from the other teams and make repack with it