What is Audacity?
Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. It is open source software licensed GPLv3, with most code files under GPLv2-or-later. The project site says it has had more than 100M downloads since 2000.
Audacity imports and exports all major audio formats, so it can convert WAV to MP3, FLAC, Ogg and more. Third-party plugins including VST3 and Nyquist extend it, and the Spectrogram view and Vamp analyzers support frequency analysis.
The repository is undergoing major structural change while the team works on Audacity 4, which brings an entirely new UI. Patches for Audacity 3.x go to the audacity3 branch. Audio.com is the online companion for collaboration, versioned backups and sharing.
Key capabilities
- Multitrack editing Organizes audio into tracks and clips, including copying material between projects and moving clips across tracks.
- Audio recording Records audio and supports automatic saving during recording.
- Timeline controls Provides trimming, selection clearing, zoom shortcuts and timeline scrolling.
- Labels and metadata Supports project labels and audio metadata, including title and artist fields.
- Desktop deployment Runs on Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux, with source build documentation available.
Where Audacity fits
Audacity fits desktop workflows that require recording audio and arranging or editing material across multiple tracks. Clip manipulation, labels and timeline controls support the preparation of audio projects before their next production step.
Before deployment, users should test representative projects, recording workflows and required editing commands in the intended release. The interface transition includes missing features, and recent fixes address project corruption, cross-project copying and clips with different sample rates. Teams compiling the application should use build instructions matching their target release rather than assume that older instructions apply.
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