How to setup the Search function in qBittorrent and add Search Plugins
PermalinkI used qBittorrent for literally years before realizing that qBittorrent had a built-in way to search for torrents. If you're as lost as I was, here's how I set it up so I could search for torrents right inside the web UI.
Add default search engine plugins
This worked for me running qBittorrent as a Docker container using the Linuxserver image. Safe to assume it also works if running qBitorrent bare metal, but I can’t be absolutely sure.
Also, if you are running a custom web UI like VueTorrent, disable it temporarily and use the default qBittorrent web UI to do this.
First things first, you should add the default plugins that qBittorrent comes with (which are not enabled until you do it manually) to setup the search engine. After that you can add additional search engine plugins.
- In the qBittorrent default web UI, click on the Search button at the top right. You should see the below page. (Note that I am using dark mode.)
Click on the button at the bottom-right that says Search plugins….
In the window that opens, you’ll see Installed search plugins: but it should be empty. Click the Check for updates button and all the default search plugins should get installed automatically.
[warning] Important!
One of the default plugins is for Jackett and its URL will be
http://127.0.0.1:9117. If you are not running Jackett, Right-Click on it and choose Uninstall. If you don’t do this, you’ll get an error when searching because it can’t reach Jackett.If you are running Jackett, but at a different URL than the default one provided by the plugin, just click on Install new plugin and enter the IP address with network port of your Jackett instance, e.g.
http://192.168.0.100:9117, or if using a reverse proxy enter the URL likehttps://jackett.yourdomain.com.
Add additional plugins
You may have noticed during the previous step that you can get new search engine plugins. Search plugins are all community-maintained, and some have not been updated in years or have even been archived. However, plenty of these are still handy to add depending on the types of torrents you tend to look for.
To use one of the plugins listed in the repo, look for the little download link next to the plugin’s author, Right-Click and Copy link address.
Back in the qBittorrent Search plugins window, click on the Install new plugin button, paste the URL and click Ok to install the plugin.
Using the search engine
With your search plugins now installed, there’s a few things to note. To the right of the search form, there is a dropdown that says All categories, if you add plugins that are for different plugins (say one for anime and one for games) then you should pick a category from the dropdown to search only within it.
The next dropdown to the right that shows Only enabled lets you pick a specific plugin to search with, for even more granular searching.
When searching, note the tab for Engine which is the plugin being used to source the search result. You can click on any of the tabs to sort the results by that, for example by Seeders or by Size.
Happy sailing!
