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Audacity Basics
Downloading & Installing Audacity
Installing FFMPEG
Recording your Voice & Microphone
Recording Desktop Audio
Editing Audio
Saving and Exporting Projects
Installing Plugins
Keyboard Shortcuts
Repairing Audio Recordings
Noise Reduction & Removal
Re-Recording a Section
Removing Clicks & Pops
Audio Editing
Making Audio Loops
Making Crossfades
Speeding up and Slowing down Audio
Mixing and Panning Tracks
Audio Analysis
Spectral Analysis
Troubleshooting
Recovering Corrupted Projects
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Installing FFMPEG
Due to patent restrictions, FFMPEG cannot be distributed with Audacity itself. However, FFMPEG is required to import and export a variety of audio formats, including M4A and WMA.
You can download and install FFMPEG as follows:
Windows
macOS
Linux
  1. 1.
    Download FFMPEG (FFmpeg v2.2.2 INSTALLER (.EXE)) from a third party site, for example https://lame.buanzo.org/ffmpeg64audacity.php
    Note: This is the 64-bit Windows download page, if your Audacity version is 32-bit, choose a different download from https://lame.buanzo.org/​
  2. 2.
    Run the downloaded installer (in this case, FFmpeg_v2.2.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows_64bit.exe). You can ignore the "unknown publisher" warning.
  3. 3.
    Read and accept the license
  4. 4.
    Finish the installation. The installer will install FFMPEG into C:\Program Files\FFmpeg for Audacity
  5. 5.
    Restart Audacity.
Audacity should now automatically detect FFMPEG and allow you to use it.

Manual installation

If you have installed FFMPEG from a different source, or installed it in a different location, you'll need to tell Audacity where to find it. To do this:
  1. 1.
    Go to Edit > Preferences > Libraries
  2. 2.
    Click on the Locate... button.
    ​
    ​
  3. 3.
    If the following message appears, Audacity has automatically identified FFMPEG:
    ​
    ​
    You can click No as Audacity already knows where to find FFMPEG.
    If this message does not appear, proceed with the next steps.
  4. 4.
    In this dialog window, click Browse... to locate the avformat-*.dll from the FFMPEG folder you downloaded/installed elsewhere
    ​
    ​
  5. 5.
    Once you've found it, click Open, then OK, then OK again to close the preferences.
Note:
  • Audacity currently supports avformat-55.dll, avformat-57.dll and avformat-58.dll. Different versions than these will not work.
  • Make sure you download full FFMPEG copies, not just the avformat-*.dll's individually.
​
  1. 1.
    Download FFMPEG (ffmpeg_64bit_osx.pkg) from a third party site, for example https://lame.buanzo.org/#lameosx64bitdl
  2. 2.
    When you have finished downloading, double-click the "ffmpeg_64bit_osx.pkg" in your Downloads folder.
  3. 3.
    You will be guided through the installation
  4. 4.
    Click through the steps in the installer. This will install the ffmpeg.55.64bit.dylib file in the system library at /Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/.
    • On some Macs the process may look as though it has stalled on "Validating packages" - just be patient and wait for it to complete.
  5. 5.
    Restart Audacity if it was running when you installed FFmpeg then Audacity should detect FFmpeg automatically.
If you have problems with Audacity detecting FFmpeg, follow the steps below to manually locate FFmpeg.

Manual installation

If you have installed FFMPEG from a different source, or installed it in a different location, you'll need to tell Audacity where to find it. To do this:
  1. 1.
    Go to Audacity > Preferences > Libraries
  2. 2.
    Click on the Locate... button.
  3. 3.
    If a "Success" message appears, Audacity has successfully found FFMPEG. You can click No as Audacity already knows where to find FFMPEG.
    If this message does not appear, proceed with the next steps.
  4. 4.
    In the "Locate FFMPEG" dialog, click Browse... to locate the avformat-*.dylib from the FFMPEG folder you downloaded/installed elsewhere.
  5. 5.
    Once you've found it, click Open, then OK and OK again to close the preferences.
On Linux, you generally can install FFMPEG through the package manager. You can use the following command in your Terminal/Console to install it:
Debian, Ubuntu, Pop_OS!, Mint
sudo apt install ffmpeg
Fedora, Redhat, CentOS
First install the RPM Fusion repository and check for updates, then
sudo dnf install ffmpeg
Arch, Manjaro
sudo pacman -Syu ffmpeg
Once you have installed FFMPEG, restart Audacity. It will automatically try to detect FFMPEG.
Caution: Audacity currently supports FFMPEG's libavformat in version 55, 57 and 58. If your distribution ships with a different version, it may not get detected, or may not work correctly. In that case, you may need to uninstall FFMPEG again and build a supported version from source.

Manual installation

If your FFMPEG installation didn't get detected, you'll need to tell Audacity where to find it. To do this:
  1. 1.
    Go to Edit > Preferences > Libraries
  2. 2.
    Click on the Locate... button.
  3. 3.
    If a "Success" message appears, Audacity has successfully found FFMPEG. You can click No as Audacity already knows where to find FFMPEG.
    If this message does not appear, proceed with the next steps.
  4. 4.
    In the "Locate FFMPEG" dialog, click Browse... to locate the libavformat.so.* from the FFMPEG folder you downloaded/installed elsewhere.
  5. 5.
    Once you've found it, click Open, then OK and OK again to close the preferences.
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