[HowTo] Send Large Files With BitTorrent

Sending large files across the internet is a little bit tricky. If you just sending your photos with size 1mb each, you can send it via email. But email service have limitation with large attachments. In Gmail you have 25MB max attachment size, Yahoo 25MB and Hotmail 10MB. So how about sending 1GB-5GB of data across the internet?

The easy way is using Skype peer to peer connection or MSN send file feature. But this feature cannot resume download when your connection is not good. Imagine if your already reach 99% download process, and you lost connection, you have to download it from beginning. It will waste your time. So the other solution which is easy too, is using BitTorrent protocol.

What is BitTorrent? BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files. So basically, you share your files to the internet and create a pointer (called torrent file) to your file location, and your friends can download it to their computers directly from your computer.

So how to send large files with BitTorrent ? Follow the steps below:
1. First you need BitTorrent client. You can use uTorrent.
2. Open uTorrent, and File > Create New Torrent
3. Choose a file or a directory
4. You need Trackers, so your friend’s computer know where the files is. Fill Trackers as below:

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://www.sumotracker.com/announce
http://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
http://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce 

5. Check start seeding.
6. Create and Save as. Now you have a torrent file.
7. Send the torrent file to your friend.

To download it:
1. Open uTorrent.
2. Click File > Add Torrent, choose the torrent file.
3. Press Start
4. Wait until it finish download.

Now sharing large files is easy. So if you have thousands of photos or videos and want to send it to your family, you can use BitTorrent instead of email.

Download uTorrent

Comments

  1. nick says:

    hi there:)
    this sounds like a great idea! but what about keeping my files that are intended for my friends only private…i don't have too clear idea of how torrents work in detail…but lets say someone makes a search for a file called "my favorite photos" or similar and my torrent file is announced as similar or the same name…this casual "not-friend" will be able to download my private torrent…or not?

    • Hi nick, as long as you are not submitted the torrent files to the public, your torrent will keep in private.
      The only way people can find your files is through the pointer that stored in torrent files. So as long as you are not give it to false person, it won't public. And if you see something wrong with the file access, you can stop it and delete it from the folder.

  2. Great tip Ivan, very useful!

    Somehow I had never thought of using the BitTorrent protocol
    to send my large files and I just resorted to those list of services
    that also we have on MasterNewMedia.org:
    http://www.masternewmedia.org/how_to_send_large_files_without_email/

    but this sounds like a very good idea with
    a good perspective on the privacy of the info shared.

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