// LOADING OSUMAUK
Beatmap packs let you grab hundreds of maps in one download instead of clicking through the listing one at a time. Here are the packs worth your bandwidth, from starter bundles to skill-specific practice sets.
By OSUMAUK Staff
A beatmap pack is a bundle of maps zipped together and downloaded in one go, instead of grabbing each set one at a time from the listing. The official packs live under the Beatmap Packs section on the osu! website, sorted into featured artists, themed collections, and the standard/taiko/catch/mania difficulty tiers. For a new player, a pack is the fastest way to fill an empty song folder; for an improving player, a skill-specific pack is a ready-made practice playlist.
Packs download as .osz archives (sometimes zipped together). Newer packs are just a folder of .osz files - drop them onto the osu! window or double-click each one and the game imports them. Very old packs can contain maps that no longer match the current ranking status, so treat pack age as a rough guide to how current the maps are.
If your song folder is empty, the ranked Standard packs are the place to start. They are grouped by difficulty tier, so you can grab the tier that matches your level - the lowest tiers are gentle 1 to 3 star maps, and each tier up raises the ceiling. Downloading one tier at a time gives you dozens of ranked maps you can actually pass, which beats the beginner trap of installing one impossible map and bouncing off it.
The most useful packs for improvement are not the official difficulty tiers - they are the community practice compilations. These bundle maps that ramp a single skill in steps, usually by BPM or spacing, so you can sit in one folder and climb. They are the practical version of the advice in the best osu! beatmaps guide: play just above your comfort level, then step up.
// Beatmap
Stream Practice Maps
Various Artists · stepped-BPM stream trainer, from slow to 220+ BPM
// Beatmap
Square Jump Practice Maps
Various Artists · spaced-jump aim drills across a BPM range
// Beatmap
Corner Jump Training
Various Artists · wide corner-to-corner jumps for raw aim range
These "packs" are distributed as single loved beatmapsets with many difficulties rather than website packs, which makes them easy to import and easy to sit inside for a full practice session. Play the difficulty at your BPM ceiling, get it clean, then move up one.
Downloading a pack is the easy part. The mistake is dumping 200 maps into your folder and playing them at random. Instead, treat a pack as a menu: filter it in-game by star rating, pick the handful at your level, and rotate through them the way the how to improve faster guide suggests - aim, then streams, then reading. A pack is only useful if you play the maps in it deliberately.
"A pack is a playlist, not a trophy shelf. The download does nothing - the maps you actually rotate through, at your level, are what move your rank.
For the maps worth playing on their own merits rather than in bulk, see the best osu! beatmaps guide, and for the fastest way to fill out a low-rank profile from a starter pack, the easiest pp maps guide covers which of those early ranked maps actually pay.