Move Transmission Data Folder

Are you using Transmission and do you want to change the data folder? However, do you have active torrents for which you want to keep the progress? This article explains how!

Prerequisites

It is assumed that you have an active Transmission setup. Within this article, the Transmission setup is a Transmission web server variant that runs on Debian.

Change Data Folder

To make sure the service is not interfering with our settings, stop Transmission. Do this using service transmission-daemon stop.
Next, open the /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json and change:

{
  "download-dir": "/path/to/finished/torrents",
  "incomplete-dir": "/path/to/unfinished/torrents",
}

Once satisfied save the file and start Transmission using service transmission-daemon start.

Fix Existing Torrents

Once you have changed the location of the unfinished torrents and you start Transmission, the server does not know where to find the files. To fix that start by listing the torrents using transmission-remote -l.
Next, move a torrent using transmission-remote -t {TORRENT_ID} --move /new/path/to/unfinished/torrents. After moving the torrent validate that the files are in the expected location. If not do a manual cp.
It is recommended to validate the moved files using transmission-remote -t {TORRENT_ID} --verify.
Finally, restart Transmission to make sure the changes take into effect, do this using service transmission-daemon restart. If you now navigate to Transmission you will find your moved torrents.