Managing Tasks
Once a task is running, everything happens on the Downloads page: watching progress, pausing, retrying, inspecting details, and cleaning up.
Reading the list
Each row shows the task’s name, size, progress, download and upload speed, remaining time, peers, and status. Use the tabs — All, Active, Completed, Error — and the search box (with its HTTP / magnet / BitTorrent / FTP type filter) to find things fast.
Task actions
Select a task and the action bar appears. Which buttons show up depends on what the task is doing:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pause / Resume | Stop and continue. Resumed downloads pick up where they left off whenever the server allows it |
| Retry | Run a failed task again |
| Retry with options… (Alt+Click) | Reopen the New Task dialog prefilled with this task’s settings, so you can fix something before retrying |
| Select files | Change which files of a torrent to download — even mid-download |
| Stop seeding / Re-seed | End or restart uploading a finished torrent |
| Open folder | Show the downloaded file in your file manager |
| Copy URL | Copy the task’s original link |
Pause all and Resume all live in the Task menu and on ⌘⇧P / ⌘⇧R (Ctrl+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+R).
Working on several tasks at once
Build a selection with Shift-click, ⌘-click (Ctrl-click), or by dragging a box around tasks. The same action bar now works on the whole selection — the tooltip tells you exactly what will happen, like “Pause 3 of 5 selected” (the other 2 aren’t in a pausable state). If some of a batch succeed and some fail, Motrix reports both counts instead of pretending everything worked.
Removing tasks
Removing asks first: “Remove task?” By default the task only leaves the list — the file on disk stays, and the confirmation tells you where it was kept. The “Delete downloaded files” checkbox always starts unchecked, whatever the task’s status; tick it to also remove the file, and Motrix shows how much disk space that frees. Holding Shift when triggering the removal pre-checks the box for you.
Caution
Delete downloaded files cannot be undone. The files are removed from your disk, not moved to the trash.
The task detail panel
Click a task to open the detail panel — six tabs deep-dive into a single download:
- Overview — speeds, ETA, downloaded/total, connections, and metadata like the info hash. Every value can be copied with a click.
- Files — the torrent’s file list with checkboxes; change your selection any time.
- Pieces — a live map of the file’s pieces: completed, downloading, endgame, pending. Works for regular downloads too — it’s a great way to see multi-connection downloading at work.
- Peers — who you’re connected to: IP, client, speeds, and (if enabled) a country flag per peer. See BitTorrent downloads.
- Trackers — this task’s tracker list, editable in place. See Trackers.
- Activity — transfer charts for the last minute and the task’s lifetime, plus a timeline of everything that happened: added, started, paused, resumed, completed, failed, recovered.
When a task fails
Failed tasks show a plain-language reason and a hint — “disk full”, “authorization required”, “checksum mismatch”, and so on — instead of a bare error code. Start with Retry; if the same failure repeats, the reason text and Troubleshooting will point you further.
After a restart
Motrix remembers your tasks. When it starts, interrupted downloads are restored and a toast tells you: “Recovered N interrupted task(s). Click to review.” The rare cases that can’t be recovered (for example, a task whose torrent metadata is gone, or an interrupted streaming-media download) are marked clearly so you can re-add them.