Preferences - Audacity Manual

# Preferences

### From Audacity Manual

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 fifteen sections:

  Section | What it controls
  --- | ---
  Devices | Select audio devices and their properties.
  Playback | Set playback behavior when previewing audio, or seeking.
  Recording | Settings for playthrough, latency, and sound-activated recording.
  Quality | Select sample rate and format, conversion trade offs between speed, size and quality.
  Interface | Interface behavior, hide and show additional information, preferred dB display range, choose language.
  Tracks | Tracks display and behavior, behavior of the Solo button.
  Import / Export | Whether imported audio is copied into projects, if tracks are normalized, how audio is mixed upon export.
  Projects | What to do when saving a project that depends on other audio files, turn auto save on or off and set auto save interval.
  Libraries | Locations of the LAME MP3 and FFmpeg libraries.
  Spectrograms | Settings for presentation of spectrogram.
  Directories | Location of the temporary files directory, play and/or record using RAM (useful for slow drives)
  Warnings | Choose to show or not show warnings when saving projects, mixing down, and when disk space is getting low.
  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.

Note: Choice of export format (WAV, MP3 and others) is made at time of export in the File Export Dialog. Click on the Options... button next to the Export format: dropdown in the Export/Export Multiple dialog box.

## 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 and can be edited with any text editor. The file is stored at:

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

However if you a create a directory called "Portable Settings" in the same directory as the Audacity executable, "audacity.cfg" will be stored there instead. This facilitates transfer of the user's customized settings (for example, via a USB stick) if Audacity is used on another computer.

## Resetting Preferences

Resetting preferences to factory defaults by editing audacity.cfg 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 (should be the very first line)
3. Save the changes to audacity.cfg and restart Audacity

In order to see audacity.cfg, you may need to set the operating system to show hidden files and folders. See instructions for Windows 7 and Windows versions before 7.

The above three steps will reset Audacity version 1.3 and newer Preferences in all cases. If you still use (or have ever used) Audacity 1.2, this will not affect your 1.2 Preferences.

Merely exiting Audacity and deleting audacity.cfg will not completely reset Preferences if you have ever previously used a 1.2 version. Audacity 1.3 and newer Preferences which also apply to 1.2 will revert to their current 1.2 settings, which may not solve any problems you were trying to fix.

A less recommended way to completely reset Audacity version 1.3 and newer References on a machine which has previously run 1.2 is to delete the old 1.2 settings file as well as audacity.cfg. This will completely remove your 1.2 settings which may not be appropriate if you plan to continue using 1.2. The 1.2 settings are stored in the "audacity" file in your Library (OS X), the file ~/.audacity (Linux) or the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Audacity\.

Modifying the Windows Registry can be dangerous! Before modifying the Registry, always back it up, or set a System Restore point on XP or later.

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