How in the Tech

Using Gmail as a gateway for downloading torrents

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 30, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Gmail

Google’s Gmail is a fantastic product that can carry the cliched game-changer statement admirably. Gmail was the first free email service that obliterated the notion of an email quota. The service has evolved greatly since it’s introduction in April 2004 but even Google wouldn’t have foreseen the ways Gmail can be used for things other than just email. Today I have one such creative use for Gmail.

Using email is a common method of reminding yourself to do something at a later day – not unlike a traditional calendar or task list. While a calendar/task item is thought to be more appropriate, it’s often an unnecessary overhead for many users – users who don’t generally have all these tasks or events to keep track of. If my neighbor phones me at lunch to ask me to bring in the package FedEx left for them on their stoop when I get home I’d probably just email myself the reminder to my home address, rather than use another reminder system because, let’s face it, I need something to jar my memory as I’m going to forget the task from now, at lunch, until later that night.

Just as in the package example above, we can use Gmail to take care of things that we otherwise couldn’t at this exact moment. Specifically, downloading a torrent file from your office to your home computer – delivered via an email. MailBin 2 is a free portable Windows application written atop .NET that can check your Gmail account for emails containing a specific phrase and attachment and then, most importantly, act accordingly. Instead of emailing myself a link to a specific torrent file which I can then download when I get home, I can send the torrent file itself. MailBin 2 can then save the torrent file attachment into a folder on my home PC where my BitTorrent client can be configured to automatically load and initiate the download.

Sound a bit complicated and hard to implement? It’s not at all. Setting up MailBin 2 is as simple as providing -

• your Gmail account information
• the directory that your BitTorrent client will automatically load torrent files from
• the passphrase in the email that triggers the MailBin execution

That’s it!