How to select the wanted files for a Librivox public-domain audiobook, when downloading via an Archive.org torrent. I’m using the popular free qBitTorrent software.

It’s a bit tricky to get just a certain set of files downloading and not the others. This is how it can be done:

1. Download the .torrent file.

2. Start the entire torrent. In the Content panel, immediately deselect all the torrent’s files.

3. Now filter the file set for “128kb.mp3” or whatever other standard naming you have in the set for the highest-quality audio files.

4. Shift-select all these filtered files, so that they’re highlighted. Don’t attempt to tick them all (there may be hundreds). Instead right-click them as a selected block and set them to priority “Normal”. qBitTorrent will now consider the files “ticked” and active.

5. Start the torrent. You should see that only the desired files are downloading.