Change "Set Location..." to "Move torrent files to..." or equivalent and implement an "actual" "Set Location..."

[FranciscoPombal]

Please provide the following information

qBittorrent version and Operating System

Any

If on linux, libtorrent-rasterbar and Qt version

N/A

What is the problem

"Set Location..." is an ambiguous name/description for the functionality it does. A lot of people (correctly, IMO) assume it can be used to point a newly added torrent to existing files. This is further reinforced by expectations set by uTorrent (and possibly other clients) in the past IIRC.

See #12059, #3896, and possibly others.

What is the expected behavior

The naming should be clearer. IMO, it should be renamed to "Move torrent files to..." or equivalent. Furthermore, it should probably at least warn the user if there is a directory with the same name as the top-level torrent directory of the torrent (or a filename with the same name, in the case of single-file torrents) in the new chosen location for the move.

Additionally, an actual "Set location..." functionality could be added, possibly renamed to "Set location of files..." to be extra clear about what it does. Maybe it should also trigger a recheck.

Steps to reproduce

N/A

Extra info(if any)

N/A

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[Chocobo1]

A lot of people (correctly, IMO) assume it can be used to point a newly added torrent to existing files.

It actually can, it is just picky about the folder/directory structure. I never get it right at the first try. You can try selecting the parent (or maybe the grandparent) folder instead of the torrent folder itself.
And the folder name on disk must match the folder name in .torrent file.

[FranciscoPombal]

It actually can, it is just picky about the folder/directory structure. I never get it right at the first try. You can try selecting the parent (or maybe the grandparent) folder instead of the torrent folder itself.
And the folder name on disk must match the folder name in .torrent file.

Then maybe qBittorrent should warn about choosing the "wrong" folder - something like "This folder does not correspond to the top level torrent directory. Proceed?". In case the top-level name is correct a recheck should always be triggered.

[jedmeister324]

A lot of people (correctly, IMO) assume it can be used to point a newly added torrent to existing files.

It actually can, it is just picky about the folder/directory structure. I never get it right at the first try. You can try selecting the parent (or maybe the grandparent) folder instead of the torrent folder itself.
And the folder name on disk must match the folder name in .torrent file.

This is not my experience.

It actually can, it is just picky about the folder/directory structure. I never get it right at the first try. You can try selecting the parent (or maybe the grandparent) folder instead of the torrent folder itself.
And the folder name on disk must match the folder name in .torrent file.

Then maybe qBittorrent should warn about choosing the "wrong" folder - something like "This folder does not correspond to the top level torrent directory. Proceed?". In case the top-level name is correct a recheck should always be triggered.

I am a bit confused.

I have a 500gb SSD drive for pending downloads, and a 4tb mechanical drive for completed downloads.

Pending 'incomplete' downloads go to this ssd drive:
E:\Pending

Completed downloads go to :
D:\Completed

If I have a large torrent, I want it to download straight to the completed folder. So, I add the torrent, it starts to download to the SSD E:\Pending drive by default.

I halt the large torrent using pause, then manually copy the partial downloaded files from E:\Pending, to D:\Complete

Then, I use 'Set location' to change the downlod to the "D:\Complete" folder -- but , then when I do a recheck, it only rechecks the original E: drive. Not the D: drive where I told qbit that the files are now located.

This directly conflicts with what you have stated -- If you are right, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks, in advance.

[kanliot]

quoting jedmiester

This directly conflicts with what you have stated -- If you are right, what am I doing wrong?

Yes, this is the problem with "Set location". Set location doesn't tell libtorrent where the files are, it only tells libtorrent where to move the files to.

The workaround seems to be to always delete the libtorrent torrent, but not delete your files.

[guiltlab]

This would really improve qbit. All clients I have ever used have this option except qbit. It's super annoying to have to delete the torrent, re-add it again and then recheck whenever I have manually changed the location of the data. And the fact that qbit will simply decide to redownload and overwrite your completed files instead of warning you "hey, looks like the files are already at the new location" and rechecking them, is very frustrating. I've had to re-download files quite a few times because of this, and I even completely lost some data for torrents where I was the sole seeder.

One may say "just use the qbit move function" instead of moving the files directly and pointing to the location after the fact, but that is not the answer. 1) I don't trust the program moving the files for me in case of big operations and importantly 2) it gets really problematic when cross seeding: even if you use the built-in "set location to" function on one cross seeding copy, you will have to delete and re-add all the other torrents yourself.

I'm no expert by any means, but I saw some comments about how this is not a qbit problem but a libtorrent problem. The thing is, rtorrent/rutorrent handles this just fine, and if I'm not mistaken it's also based on libtorrent. When I change the download path on rutorrent, there is a "Move files" checkbox which I can tick or untick, depending on whether the files are already at the new location or whether I want rutorrent to move them. Isn't this function exactly what we need?

Thanks in advance

[Mr-Personality]

Here's the way I think the program should work…

1. Automatic relocation
If you go into Options and change the download paths, a dialog should pop up giving you 3 options:
• Apply this new Path ONLY to future torrents
• Transfer ALL existing files to the new location [Program pauses/restarts while files are moved]
• I've already moved the files myself

2. Manual moving
Or, if you've already moved the files manually, when qBittorrent starts it should give a message saying: "Many files are missing, do you want to specify a new path for your torrent files?" and if you choose yes, and browse to the new path, the program should continue the torrents exactly where it left off.

3. Context menu
If you right-click on a torrent, you should see an option "Relocate the file…". This leads to a dialog with a location browser at the top, and two options below it:
• Transfer the files to this new location [Program pauses/restarts while files are moved]
• I've already moved the files myself

This would make it MUCH less confusing to use.

[guiltlab]

Bumping this, because I still think this is the feature that is the most needed in qbit. It's a daily issue for me that I cannot do that. It makes cross-seeding between private trackers a real pain.