How to configure Jackett plugin
qBittorrent comes with a few search plugins. Although these are often sufficient for most users, those who wish to perform searches at a wider array of indexing sites have the option of installing Jackett and running it in tandem with qBittorrent to take advantage of its much larger catalog of indexers (575, as of June 2024) and efficiency in retrieving results from them.configure the Jackett qBittorrent plugin (essentially, set the API key).
As explained in the project's README.md file (emphasis added):
Jackett works as a proxy server: it translates queries from apps ([including] qBittorrent […]) into site-specific HTTP queries for any number of [BitTorrent] trackers, parses the HTML or JSON responses, then sends the results back to the requesting software. This allows for getting recent uploads (like RSS) and performing searches. Jackett is a single repository of maintained indexer scraping and translation logic — removing the burden from other apps.
More plainly, while qBittorrent is a download manager which has evolved to include some built-in facilities for torrent discovery, Jackett is purpose-built software designed for performing those same searches on a much larger scale. An application such as qBittorrent can present the searches it's asked to perform to Jackett, which broadcasts them to a user-defined list of potentially hundreds of indexing sites all at once, and then feeds the results back as they come in. The primary advantages to this arragement are threefold:
- As performing searches is its only function, it is much faster at conducting them and processing the results.
- The ability to perform searches at a much wider list indexes that is quick to add new sites and remove dead ones.
- It is much better at reacting to the frequent changes that occur on the indexer sites that arise as they work to mitigate attempts to interrupt their operation.
Updates to their catalog of indexers take place almost daily and it includes hundreds of sites which never had nor were ever likely to get their own qBittorrent search plugin.
Jackett is built using the .NET framework and requires that you have the .NET 8 Runtime present on your system prior to installation. Microsoft provides installer files for the runtime for Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux (click the preceding links to see the minimum requirements for each operating system).
Official .NET installation guides:
Once the .NET runtime is installed, follow the official documentation linked below to install and configure Jackett.
- Installation on Windows
- Installation on Linux:
Note
The full download URL for the plugin file is
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qbittorrent/search-plugins/master/nova3/engines/jackett.py
Follow these steps to manually install the plugin:
- Launch qBittorrent and click on the Search tab (only shown when "Search Engine" is active in the View menu)
- Highlight the URL shown above or right-click this link and copy it to the clipboard
- Click the Search plugins… button in the bottom-right corner, then click Install a new one, and finally Web link as the "Search plugin source"
- qBittorrent tries to automatically fill the input field if a URL is found on the clipboard, but if not, manually paste the URL there
Important
Remember to start Jackett first. :)
The Jackett plugin uses an external configuration file, ensuring that any
updates to the plugin file will not erase or reset your settings. The name of
the configuration file is jackett.json and it must reside in the same folder
as the qBittorrent search plugin files, the defaults for which are:
-
Windows:
- CMD syntax:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\qBittorrent\nova3\engines - PowerShell syntax:
"${Env:LOCALAPPDATA}\qBittorrent\nova3\engines"
- CMD syntax:
-
Linux:
-
"${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/qBittorrent/nova3/engines"(current) -
"${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/data/qBittorrent/nova3/engines"(former) "${HOME}/.var/app/org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent/data/qBittorrent/nova3/engines"
-
-
macOS:
"~/Library/Application Support/qBittorrent/nova3/engines"
If for some reason the configuration file doesn't exist, create one with the following contents:
{
"api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE",
"url": "http://127.0.0.1:9117",
"tracker_first": false,
"thread_count": 20
}Tip
If running qBittorrent in headless mode and accessing its web interface remotely, Jackett's default configuration to bind to the loopback address (127.0.0.1) must be replaced with a routable address (for instance, using DDNS or an IPv6 Global Unicast Address) to allow traffic to pass between it and qBittorrent. Additional firewall rules or port forwarding may also be needed.
The change must be made in both the Jackett UI and the plugin configuration
file, specifically its url key. For example:
{
"api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE",
- "url": "http://127.0.0.1:9117",
+ "url": "http://yourserver.ddnsprovider.host:9117",
"tracker_first": false,
"thread_count": 20
}| Property name | Initial value | Description |
|---|---|---|
api_key |
YOUR_API_KEY_HERE |
Jackett API Key, shown in the upper-right corner of the Jackett UI (screenshot below) |
url |
http://127.0.0.1:9117 |
Jackett service address (without a terminating forward slash) |
tracker_first |
false |
Prepend indexer site name to each search result (takes Boolean value) |
thread_count |
20 |
Maximum number of concurrent requests to Jackett (to disable concurrent requests, set value to 1) |
The Jackett plugin is enabled by default in qBittorrent. However, you can disable it or removing it entirely at any time by following these steps:
-
In the Search tab, click the Search plugins… button in the bottom-right corner.
-
Locate the entry named Jackett in the list.
-
To disable the plugin:
- Right-click the entry and clear the checkmark from the Enabled option.
Or to uninstall the plugin:
- Right-click the entry and select Uninstall.
-
Click the Close button.
After successfully installing Jackett and integrating it with qBittorrent, the results it provides appear as seen below.
