[Suggestion] Automatically delete unwanted files

[HASJ]

Keeping only the first and last pieces of each unwanted file.
The amount of wasted HDD space because of this behaviour boggled my mind. I just deleted 300gb because qBT doesn't do it automatically.

[Siban]

I believe this behaviour is done on purpose.

Even if you don't want part of a torrent, someone else might, and if that torrent is incomplete it can't be properly shared.

[chrishirst]

Version??

OS??

And yes it is deliberate, the "unwanted" cross file pieces, WILL be removed ONLY when the task is removed from the client task list, and if you delete them before, ... qbittorrent will either display an error OR will simply download those pieces once more.

You will ALSO render some of the "wanted" files unusable.

[HASJ]

@chrishirst
Windows 10, v3.3.0

WILL be removed ONLY when the task is removed from the client task list

That's one my major gripes with qBT. I like to keep my torrents in the list. That way, if I want to watch something again I just tell the client to do it, with save path and custom names all ready.
I have a mild OCD with file names and I had to rename 120 files 3 times in qBT because of this behaviour.

and if you delete them before, ... qbittorrent will either display an error OR will simply download those pieces once more.

I constantly download TV shows and when I'm done watching a episode, I delete them. Because of this, I have 186 torrents in error state.
v3.3 aliviated the problem with the Error view but it is not optimal.

[chrishirst]

I delete them. Because of this, I have 186 torrents in error state

What would expect to happen if, for instance, you deleted a bunch of video files that were currently playing in VLC or Windows Media Player??

Because that is EXACTLY what you are doing when you delete files that qbittorrent is peering. You CANNOT delete files and hope that everything simply carries on as if nothing has happened.

The 'fix' is really simple;
STOP deleting files without unloading them them from the client and this 'problem' will stop happening!

[HASJ]

@chrishirst
Did you even read what I typed?
I don't want to remove the torrents from qBT. I want them to appear in the 'Completed/Finished' status sidebar.
This is extra annoying because I already stopped the torrents, they aren't running and yet qBT does what it does.

[Seraiel]

Sry, but the behaviour of qBittorrent in that situation is really not acceptable. Space on a Harddrive is limited, and I'm in the situation, where I needed to buy myself a new, bigger Harddisk, just because qBittorrent stored stuff I didn't want and could'nt delete. If qBittorrent would simply wait with downloading until the user specififyed exactly which parts he wants, a lot of network traffic would be saved, as also valuable space on the harddisk. The other solution is, that qBittorrent deletes those files automatically, once the user has chosen to not wanting / keeping them. Plz read further:

If I download a torrent-file that consists out of 100 different pieces in different subfolders where I manually have to check if I want them or not, I need at least 200s for that (100-piece-torrents are not unrealistic, I downloaded at least 5-10 of them today) . During that time, 62MB of data are downloaded from qBittorrent, probably 60MB that I don't want and deselect, because I only want one very specific file from the large torrent. I download 100 torrents that are like that, then qBittorrent already wastes more than half a GB of data on my Harddrive. Time goes on, I download 1000 torrents like that and 60GB are completely wasted. That's easily 1/10th (or 10%) of a total HD from a notebook that's still very new.

[Siban]

May I interject once more?

@HASJ @Seraiel :

@chrishirst is trying to explain to you that qBittorrent is not a media management library but a bittorrent client. The philosophy behind bittorrent is sharing / distributed downloading.

The behaviour you are asking for breaks bittorrent sharing.

While qBittorrent has the torrent in the task list, it must have all files in order to share them.
When qBittorrent removes the torrent from the task list, any .unwanted files are then removed from your drive.

[chrishirst]

Time goes on, I download 1000 torrents like that and 60GB are completely wasted. That's easily 1/10th (or 10%) of a total HD from a notebook that's still very new.

Can I just say ... ... Nobody cares about that! That is *one hundred percent YOUR problem * and absolutely nothing at all to do with qbittorrent.
As @Siban says qbittorrent is a bittorrent protocol client, NOT your personal media/file manager.

No one makes you use qbittorrent and no one really cares if you choose to use something else,

And if you need some way to keep a catalogue of completed tasks, I posted a python script to do just that at the support forum.

[HASJ]

@Siban

The behaviour you are asking for breaks bittorrent sharing.

No, it does not.
Have you seen how uTorrent manages this kind of thing? Partial downloading? It creates a .dat file which contain only the parts needed to finish a file that has a piece split with the unwanted file.
Example: Torrent A has 200GB divided in 200 files.
I select only File F.
uTorrent then downloads the pieces that belong to File F plus the last piece of File E and the first piece of File G.
Even if the "Allocate files on creation" option is enabled, all files will be deleted with the exception of File F. Last piece of File E and first piece of File G will become a .dat file with the size of each piece.
There is NO need to maintain it's original size, since the rest of the file is non-existant, therefore, impossible to share and would just waste storage space.

Now, qbittorrent already does not waste bandwidth downloading unwanted files, it does not download extra pieces except the ones needed to make the selected files work but it does however keep the files with their original size. That means there was 199 files that were basically empty, occupying 199GB of space when there is no reason at all for that.

@chrishirst

...absolutely nothing at all to do with qbittorrent.

It has absolutely everything to do with qbittorrent.
Tixati works like this, Azureus works like this, freaking Aria2 works like this, goddamn uTorrent works like this since, what, 2007? 2006?
I imagine even Deluge handles this part of partial downloading better than qbt.
Do you understand me now?

[Seraiel]

@chrishirst :

You should consider these two things: 1. When will I share more, when torrents take superflous space on my harddrive, or when they only keep what's necessary or a little more? Yes, in the 2nd case, I'll keep seeding a torrent, if space gets rare though, the torrents are the first files to go because of the space they waste, making me share less. Now which situation is better for sharing.

1. That's not 100% my problem. That's the problem of everybody using qBT with files like I described, and @HASJ has shown, that other clients handle this better.

Addition: I never ever wrote only one time of using qBT as my media-player. Stop misunderstanding us plz and don't lay us words in our mouth, that we didn't use plz.

2nd Addition: "Noone even cares if you use it or not. " is wrong too, I know people that care that I share over 1000 torrents, they write mails to me in which they say thank you.

[Seraiel]

Also, look at this page from the Deluge-client, they offer a feature to delete the unwanted files automatically.

http://forum.deluge-torrent.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28915

[Seraiel]

Switched over to Tixati. The tone and also content from [b]chrishirst[/b] is unacceptable from my point of view, we are not forced to use qBT, you want us to use qBT. The last post from Chris in special shows absolutely no manors. Other qBT-staff-members are more friendly though, so it's not an issue with qBT, but just with Chris.

[thalieht]

Gonna post that comment and make people drop it

You sure showed him!

On topic now; if something can be done about it i'm sure it shall be done.

[chrishirst]

The last post from Chris in special shows absolutely no manors.

manors??
Do you mean "manners", which is an assumption on your part. Having manners and being prepared to state my point succinctly and emphatically are two different things

2nd Addition: "Noone even cares if you use it or not. " is wrong too, I know people that care that I share over 1000 torrents, they write mails to me in which they say thank you.

Why does that make a difference regarding what BT client you use? The 'thank you' is for providing the content not using any particular client, the "no one cares" is related to the fact that YOU are free to choose what bittorrent client best suits your 'modus operandi'. If client 'A' is not right for you, then simply use a different one that is.

And all the 'issues' you raise are actually libtorrent behaviours not qbittorrent. So, if you want to stop all the space being automatically allocated, turn OFF automatically starting the download and use the "add new torrent" dialogue to 'de-select' parts of the payload before the initial startup of the torrent takes place.

[HASJ]

And all the 'issues' you raise are actually libtorrent behaviours not qbittorrent.

Waow.

So, if you want to stop all the space being automatically allocated, turn OFF automatically starting the download and use the "add new torrent" dialogue to 'de-select' parts of the payload before the initial startup of the torrent takes place.

Nope. Does not work.

[gruslo]

I did not read all posts, but the data of unwanted files is very hard drive consuming: there are torrents of huge data and these exist in order to choose what you want for downloading, because you don't have 1TB for one torrent only. So, if I want to download only 10-20 GB, why do I have to spend more GBs, in order to keep alive the 1 TB torrent file? I cannot keep it alive because I cannot download it, I will keep alive the 20 GB that I downloaded and I am interesting for. Why have I to consume more "uncomplete" GBs on my hard drive, which are useless to me?

[thalieht]

Offtopic:
@HASJ it's not that you are right but i regret saying it for some reason.
/Offtopic

[Siban]

Github is for discussion of client problems. Arguments can take place at the forums.

The treatment of .unwanted files in qBittorrent is being considered.

[direwolfie]

Even if you don't want part of a torrent, someone else might, and if that torrent is incomplete it can't be properly shared.

@Siban Thank you for explaining this behavior! Its nice to finally understand the principle behind it.
I have to agree with some of the people above, it becomes a nuisance when downloading large files.
Just as an example, I recently downloaded a torrent of 32GB, chose to download only 2 files that equal 9GB. When I checked the .unwanted file, it had ~8GB inside. Kind of annoying, considering that my torrent machine was running low on space.

The treatment of .unwanted files in qBittorrent is being considered.

It would be nice to have this as an optional feature, maybe?

[HASJ]

That's the thing @direwolfie.
Your unwanted file might be occupying 8GB but, if each piece in your torrent is 8MB, it would only have 16MB and that's only if it's connected to a file you want.

@Siban
Thanks and sorry..

[chrishirst]

It would be nice to have this as an optional feature, maybe?

Cross-files pieces cannot be optional regardless of how they are handled in disc storage, and don't go by the size that Windows Explorer shows, check the properties of any files in the .unwanted folder(s) to see what the disc usage is.

[direwolfie]

Cross-files pieces cannot be optional regardless of how they are handled in disc storage, and don't go by the size that Windows Explorer shows, check the properties of any files in the .unwanted folder(s) to see what the disc usage is.

Wow! You are right!!! The file-manager and ls completely "screws up" file sizes! Was able to see the actual file sizes only with du.
I tested it on another torrent and a 500MB file in the file manager was only 1.8MB.
Thanks for the tip!

[AidasK]

On osx:

du -hs .unwanted/*
8.0G qqss44.mkv

Why this issue was closed? My unwanted files are still stored and I can't find an option to delete them

[damentz]

Why this issue was closed? My unwanted files are still stored and I can't find an option to delete them

I think this issue was closed preemptively as soon as it received any type of positive feedback, even if unrelated to the core issue.

Cross-files pieces cannot be optional regardless of how they are handled in disc storage, and don't go by the size that Windows Explorer shows, check the properties of any files in the .unwanted folder(s) to see what the disc usage is.

Wow! You are right!!! The file-manager and ls completely "screws up" file sizes! Was able to see the actual file sizes only with du.
I tested it on another torrent and a 500MB file in the file manager was only 1.8MB.
Thanks for the tip!

The problem is unwanted files that were marked as "Do Not Download" are still kept on the filesystem after any percentage has been received. The general response from qBittorrent developers is, someone else may want that file that you forgot to unmark before beginning your download, so now you need to continue seeding it.

My current solution is to simply stop seeding those torrents entirely. This is unfortunate since someone may want any of the files I've downloaded that I also want. But if given the option of wasting space to keep the unwanted files, or getting endless pop-up errors after deleting them manually, I'd prefer to just remove the torrent so I don't need to worry about qBittorrent wants.

Another alternative if you still have your .torrent file or the original magnet link, is to delete the torrent, remove the .unwanted folder, then re-add the torrent to the same location letting without marking the files that you accidentally downloaded. This is a lot of work to both seed the files you do want and reclaim space lost to files you don't want, so I don't expect anyone to do this unless they deliberately want to seed their files.

I hope this issue gets re-opened. It's a problem that the user will solve even if the software doesn't want them to, to the detriment of the torrents the user was part of.