Preferences

Preferences let you change most of the default behaviors of Audacity. The Preferences dialog can be accessed using the Edit Menu (or by using the shortcut CTRL + P). On a Mac, Preferences is under the Audacity Menu (shortcut CMND + ,).

The Preferences dialog is split into seventeen sections:

Section	What it controls
Devices	Choose audio host, playback and recording devices and recording channels.
Playback	Length of previews for cuts and effects; playback seek times.
Recording	Settings for playthrough, latency and Sound Activated Recording.
Quality	Choose sample rate, sample format and options for rate and format conversion.
Interface	Interface behaviors, dB display range, choose language and location of Manual, show initial "Help" dialog.
Tracks	Tracks display and behavior; behavior of the Solo button.
Import / Export	Importing: if audio is copied into projects, if tracks are normalized. Exporting: how audio is mixed, if Metadata Editor appears, Allegro exports.
Extended Import	Specify different importers to open specific audio file extensions.
Projects	Whether to copy in dependent audio files when saving projects, or ask.
Libraries	Download and locate the optional LAME and FFmpeg libraries.
Spectrograms	Settings for presentation of spectrograms.
Directories	Location of the temporary files directory.
Warnings	Warn or not when disk space is low on startup, when saving projects, mixing down or importing uncompressed audio files.
Effects	Enable or disable effects by type: LADSPA, Nyquist, VAMP, Audio Units, VST. Control display of Audio Units and VST effects.
Keyboard	Keyboard shortcuts for commands.
Mouse	Mouse shortcuts for commands.
Modules	Enable any available experimental modules.

Note: Choice of export format (WAV, MP3 and others) is made at time of export in the File Export or Export Multiple dialogs by selecting the required export format then clicking the adjacent Options... button.

Where are Preferences stored?

Starting with version 1.3 Audacity Preferences are stored in a configuration file called audacity.cfg. It is a text file saved on each clean exit of Audacity and can be edited with any text editor. The file is stored inside Audacity's folder for application data:

• Windows 2000/XP: Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Audacity
• Windows Vista/7: Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity\
• OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/
• Linux: ~/.audacity-data/

However if you create a folder called "Portable Settings" in the same directory as the Audacity executable, "audacity.cfg" will be stored there instead. If you copy this "Portable Settings" folder to a USB stick or CD this lets you take your current Audacity settings with you if you use Audacity on another computer.

Resetting Preferences

Resetting preferences to factory defaults by initializing the audacity.cfg settings file to its original contents can sometimes fix freezes, crashes or unexplained behavior.

1. Exit Audacity.
2. Open audacity.cfg in a text editor such as Notepad and remove all the content except the line NewPrefsInitialized=1 (you can find this at or near the top of the file when you open it).
3. Save the changes to audacity.cfg and restart Audacity.

• In order to see audacity.cfg on Windows, Linux and OS X 10.7 or later, you need to show hidden files and folders. See instructions for Windows 7, Windows versions before 7 and OS X 10.7.
• If you have never previously run a 1.2 version of Audacity on your computer, you can reset preferences more easily by deleting audacity.cfg while Audacity is closed. See below if you have previously run Audacity 1.2.

Windows users may alternatively run the .exe installer from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows which has an option to reset preferences.

• To reset preferences, navigate to the "Select Additional Tasks" screen then put a check mark in the "Reset Preferences" box. After completing installation, launching Audacity will display a dialog where you can confirm if you want to reset preferences this once, or not.
• If you run the installer but do not choose "Reset Preferences", the installation files will be replaced with correct copies just as when choosing to reset preferences, but the Audacity settings will remain as before. This is unlikely to correct most Audacity problems.

For those who have ever used legacy 1.2 Audacity versions: The above steps to reset preferences will not affect the 1.2 settings, but if you merely delete audacity.cfg and 1.2 settings still exist, some settings in current Audacity will reset to their 1.2 values. This may therefore not resolve any issues you were trying to fix in current Audacity. If you wish to reset the 1.2 settings as well, you can delete the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Audacity\, the "audacity" file in your Library (OS X) or the file ~/.audacity (Linux). Modifying the Windows Registry can be dangerous! Before modifying the Registry, always back it up, or set a System Restore point on Windows XP or later.