Search Torrent as You Type (like in iTunes)

[jarvolt]

I have been waiting for this feature for years. Especially now, when I'm potentially reorganizing all my torrents, it's literally impossible as I have close to a thousand right now. I just registered to voice my opinion on the matter in the hope that this will be implemented some time in the near future.

I mean, the torrent site search is virtually useless for those of us that customize our browsers' searches. A real search feature is desperately, desperately needed.

[Wyte]

I, too, have been waiting for a long while for such a useful feature. We are in the same boat, as we registered to voice a concern for such an important implementation, however basic it could essentially be.

I'm afraid I fail to see how such a minuscule thing as aethetic design could keep a great feature at bay that would bring wide-spread happiness to the plethora of users. At the very least, an option could be in the drop down of sites to search, instead, search within the current active torrent list. Another suggestion could be from within the Preferences to set what the default behavior is of the search bar, because honestly, I never use it. I'd even go so far as to say that you could make the suggestion that tjobo posted more newbie-friendly by making it available only after it has been enabled within the Preferences, so that people know what they are getting into before they do it. This would effectively let people know that you have to press enter to do an actual internet search, whereas just typing would filter through the list. Even if you consider that this wouldn't be a permanant feature, at least it will be there and useable. It functions, whether it looks good while it does it is another story that can be revisited when someone presents a more friendly method.

How it's implemented doesn't really matter, or rather, how pretty it looks, as long as it works well!

[Prthvi]

As others I think this is good feature to be implemented.

It is wasting time to remember what is the first alphabet of the torrent and then scroll down when searching

[aland]

I too would love this feature, I have 1284 torrents seeding over 15 labels. I'm using a combination of labels, sort by Added/completed, Name to find things but a search would be an immense help.

For me, the simplest thing would be to replace the current 'web search' box to be a realtime filter, as I've never used it. I understand this might be confusing for people who actually use it, how about an option in Preferences - "Search box: behaves as web search [default], behaves as local torrent filter".

Another alternative is like as suggested here to have two boxes. Which I don't think is a horrible idea, however as I mentioned, I've never used the web search (and I'm not the only one )

The search criteria would be reset after clicking something in the sidebar, ie, All, Completed.. etc or a Label. This is related to this idea, specifically

there could be a seperate Category "Filtered" which would be automatically selected and used for displaying the filter results, whenever the contents of the filter edit box is modified

.

An optional feature is to remember searches, like an autocomplete (similar what happens on the web for input boxes, sorry jewelisheaven :x)

It was mentioned here that alternative build was made which had this feature, is it available for download, or is it too unstable/outdated now?

If it makes it easier, forget about trying to make it fit in with the current search box, and if people think it's too complicated/cluttered to have two input boxes, what makes an Internet search more relevant to a torrent client than a local torrent filter?

To summarise, a new text box which filters the current list of torrents. It is disabled by default but possible to enable in preferences.

I see this feature request started in 2006, is there some technical (or otherwise) reason it can't be done? To me, it doesn't seem like a complicated feature (although the 4 pages of this thread make it seem otherwise). Appreciate the effort :-D

[AkuPython]

I might be crazy, but i'm sure previously to the Beta I'm currently using, when I used to accidently hit buttons while µT was open, a bar used to open at the top, with the buttons I had hit and only show matching torrents, but cant get it to do it anymore...

I can see how this feature would help, but would not be likely to use it myself.

[cognatus]

One more vote for this feature! I'd actually been thinking of registering specifically to request this feature! Someone (lots of people, actually) beat me to it, though.

[igarn]

It's better to have a less than perfect search feature than none.

Any of these implementations would do:

1. A special case entry in the drop-down list.

2. Having two horizontally shrinkable search bars next to each-other

3. Having two search bars that can be enabled/disabled via a popup menu

4. Switch the functions with radio buttons/additional list/checkbox/any other control

5. Dump the web search altogether. I've never used it. It opens a browser anyway, so I just open the browser instead and use its search functions.

6. Ctrl-F showing an extra line somewhere

7. Ctrl-F opning a popup window

8. A customizable combination of two or more of the above

Whatever way you choose - it's better than without the feature.

[discourteous]

I n-th this request.

Is this feature already implemented in new versions? Or why has this thread ceased?

[Wyte]

I n-th this request.

Is this feature already implemented in new versions? Or why has this thread ceased?

I'm back to voice my need for this feature again, so many months later. This could serve as a bump, but I think the community heads are set in their way that Labels, basic sorting, and single-character live searching, are 100% all we will ever need. I'm using labels for different websites, but that's the extent of them. We aren't asking for a super high-tech search that can scan individual Label contents, or individual files within the torrents, or even trackers. We only cry for a search that filters by the torrent's name! I really wish this feature would be considered, it's not like we're asking for the implementation of system-wide recursive *.torrent searching.

I just read through http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=24841 which offers some promise, but still falls short. I am hopeful that it will be implemented in the next 6-18 months though, as per how often updated releases come.

[McoreD]

Currently a function/feature like this is: Impossible

I am managing 214 torrents in Azureus/Vuze now for months and hoping to do so in µTorrent once this feature is implemented.

[Wyte]

Currently a function/feature like this is: Impossible

I don't understand. Sarcasm? Typo? Clearly it is not impossible.

[McoreD]

Wyte, I am meant currently (in the current µTorrent) build

[aargh]

A huge +1.

This feature is essential for me. I'm just over 3000 torrents I don't delete them from uT because it helps me find where the files are located on my disk.

Slightly OT, but it's a neat feature and explains why I never purge my uT list: if I accidentaly try to add a torrent which I downloaded in the past uT warns me and jumps to the existing torrent.

As others noted above, neither I use current external searches. Ever.

Filtering the list as I type would be fine for me.

[Wyte]

A year later, still longing for this feature! There's definite interest in it, even though there was an internal build back in 2007 that had it, and it was said to be reworked to be implemented in the same year nothing has happened. Well, it's 3 years later.. still we wait..

[robloxasblox]

Maybe you can search it or not.

[gaby de wilde]

If we ignore feedback from people who only leach everyone agrees this is a must have feature.</sarcasm>

No offense but I find manually searching though lists a ridiculous way of doing things on a computer. I cant imagine any statements changing my opinion about that. I would be exited to hear them.

If it would search descriptions, trackers, file names and hash it would dramatically improve the client. Also have it search "inside" the active label. We can already shift+select more than one label at a time (which does nothing ~lol~) so it shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Important to note is that for many people typing is a lot easier than reading. Some of us type really fast and/or have very poor eye sight.

note:

It would be nice if it didn't require inserting the cursor into the box. If I press "A" the list currently jumps to torrents starting with an "A", typing additional letters should not require mouse clicks.(my hands are on the keyboard)

another note:

Have it search the second word in the first results so that "bar foo" can be found by typing "foo bar" and treat non alphabetic characters .-_+[]() as if they are spaces.

The.example[2010](ASDF)DVD

good luck

[bugmenot2]

Dear uTorrent Staff, when, when will we have this simple feature like internal search?

[Wyte]

Really? The "Find Content" "pane" in 2.2, but includes nothing related to searching torrents? If there was anything useless to be added, it's that pane. So basically it opens a Google search that you probably get revenue from or track what people are trying to download/search for while recording information about them? Not to mention the Search Bar is still there above the torrent list. Can we have that bar to search through our torrents yet? Just a drop down item there, instead of a search engine let it search the list(s) internally!

So, realistically, since we've yet to hear anything on this simple yet powerful feature since it was cut before testing from an early alpha build, it's probably safe to say it won't happen within the next year ever.

There is something that doesn't completely satisfy the need for searching through our torrents but is a definite start: uBrowse the app for uTorrent, even though it is still constantly raising uTorrent's RAM footprint over 400MB and doesn't let you sort by directory AND open that directory, it's a stepping stone. Although this causes me to lose a bit of hope because they'll probably just want to continue improving the App instead of incorporating the feature into the client itself so more people will find out how "great" the Apps are [at taking 400MB of RAM].

[Firon]

Nah, we're working on this feature again in the client itself.

[Lye]

I read through some of this thread with all the people saying "Why would you want this you could just.. blah blah" or "this would only really be useful if...". I just wanted to sign up to say that I think about this all the time, sometimes I even forget and start using the search bar that's there. I think this is much more useful than the external search. I'll do my external search externally, let me do the internal searches internally. Great program, just been itching for this functionality.

[jjforums]

I got surprise when I see that uTorrent doesn't have this feature, it seems so simple just put a ctrl+F. Instead that useless searchbar, that look for the torrents (I can do it from by browser, where I stay more time than my torrent client) why don't you put a internal search?

uBrowser features multiplies the RAM of uTorrent (by more than 1), and it seems slow, the top part isn't even green.

What's the difference between uTorrent and BitTorrent (besides icon and name)?

[tritono]

I got surprise when I see that uTorrent doesn't have this feature, it seems so simple just put a ctrl+F. Instead that useless searchbar, that look for the torrents (I can do it from by browser, where I stay more time than my torrent client) why don't you put a internal search?

uBrowser features multiplies the RAM of uTorrent (by more than 1), and it seems slow, the top part isn't even green.

What's the difference between uTorrent and BitTorrent (besides icon and name)?

Yeah man, its incredible that we cant find torrents by name in our torrent list. Utorrent is an excellent program but I cant believe that this option is not available. Weird.

[tritono]

Please, please! make the Search in the List option available! Im a hardcore torrent guy. I collect torrents and I download them when I have space. Right now I have 4 terabytes of information, I have full my HDs but I collect the torrents because when I have space I download the torrents of the list. I use the torrent list with various intentions. Its indispensable for me the search option. I tried Bitspirit, Bittorrent and other clients. I really like Utorrent but the program needs that option because with frequency I need to search in the list for some torrents and I lost too much time.

Please make that option available, is a basic one. Alot of users need the option. Sorry for my english and thank you. I dont want to jump into other torrent client, I want to stick with Utorrent but we need that option!

[agent007bond]

Can't believe this feature has not yet been implemented in the release version, despite having this thread running for six years! I came here to request for it, then found this thread!

Here's my take on it: There is a search box on the top right corner of uTorrent. When a user enters something into the box, and pauses for maybe 0.5 or 1 second, uTorrent should filter the torrents list to show:

1) Torrents whose names partially match the search term (highlight the matching part would be a bonus).

2) Torrents in which at least one of the file or folder names match the search term (filtering and highlighting the matching files/folders in the Files tab would be a bonus).

If the user presses Enter, uTorrent can cancel/remove the internal filtering and open the chosen website to search for torrents.

The 0.5 to 1 second pause between user's filter entry and the actual filtering will help ensure that uTorrent runs smoothly and does not slow down trying to search as soon as the user starts typing.

EDIT: Corrected a mistake.

[Necrontyr]

Currently a function/feature like this is: Impossible

Seems so. Version 3.0 is out with lots of useless visual changes, but not this that we all consider more important, or rather, essential.

It must be impossible, indeed.