A torrent isn’t always a single file. It can be multiple files that are all downloaded via a single torrent. These files may, or may not be in a particular sequence but if they are, and you want to download them in that sequence you have two options. There’s a manual way to do it which requires time, constant user intervention, and it works on any and all torrent clients. The second method works but with specific torrent clients only.
Download torrent files in sequence
The first method, which works regardless which torrent client you’re using requires that you skip all files except the first one that you want to download. When the first file has been downloaded, you will have to manually select the second file and begin downloading it.
Disclaimer: The screenshot below is for illustrative purposes only. Do not pirate copyright protected content.
Go ahead and add the torrent. Allow it to load a list of the files it will download. Select all the files except the first one in the sequence, right-click one of the selected files, and select the ‘Don’t Download’ option from the context menu.
When the first download is complete, select the second file, right-click it, and select Start.
If you don’t want to have to manually intervene each time a file download completes, you can use the qBittorrent client. It has an option automatically download file in sequence. The client is free, and open-source. Go ahead and install it. When you add a torrent, there’s an option to ‘Download in sequential order’. Select it, and then add the torrent to the client. The files in the torrent will now download in sequence. The files must already be sorted into a sequence for this to work.
There are some other clients that have this same option but we can’t give you an exhaustive list of them all. If you’d rather not use the qBittorrent client, check if the one you prefer has a similar setting. If it doesn’t, and it also doesn’t support plugins, or a plugin that adds this feature isn’t available, you’re going to have to switch torrent clients.
For what it’s worth, qBittorrent isn’t a bad client by any measure. It has more than just the basic features that a torrent client has and clearly, a few more than the basic ones. The UI might be a bit outdated for Windows 10 but there are apps out there that look far worse.