Audacity 3.0.3 was released on the 26th of July, 2021
Key improvements:
Windows version is now 64-bit
(Note: 32-bit plugins will not work on 64-bit Audacity)
A 32-bit build of 3.0.3 remains available for download
Improved default spectrogram colors
We now provide an official binary for Linux in the form of an AppImage
Update checking: Audacity can now check to see if there is a newer version available
Error reporting: this is a new dialog where users can choose to send us the details of a serious error
Multiple bugs fixed
If you are a user of previous Audacity versions on Windows and had installed the optional FFmpeg library then you must now install the 64-bit versions of the FFmpeg library.
Otherwise your imports and exports that depend upon FFmpeg will no longer work.
See Installing FFmpeg for Windows for installation details.
Full details of new features in the visual guide to New features in Audacity 3.0.3
Audacity 3.0.3 replaces all previous versions.
Windows
Audacity 3.0.3 requires the CPU to support the SSE2 instruction set which should be available on any Intel hardware produced after 2001 and any AMD hardware produced after 2003.
To check what SSE levels your CPU supports, you can install CPU-Z.
If your hardware only supports SSE, you may download Audacity 2.0.6 see the Legacy Windows page on the Audacity Website.
3.0.3 does not support Windows XP.
You may try 2.2.2 on XP, but it is unsupported.
macOS / Mac OS X
Audacity 3.0.3 is for Intel Macs running OS X 10.9 and later and macOS.
There are legacy versions for older OS X at http://audacityteam.org/download/legacy-mac/.
Linux
Linux support is tested on Ubuntu Linux.
Audacity may compile on Gentoo, Debian, Mint.
Audacity does not currently compile on SuSE Linux.
We probably track more bugs than you are interested in...
We used to have a separate page with a dynamic buglist for each version, but nowadays we recommend instead to visit our bugzilla instance for current bug status.
We do use this detail in our own QA work.
Below are listed what we believe are the most common and important issues with 3.0.3 for most users.
Accessibility
Less of Audacity is properly accessible to visually impaired users than we would like. Currently the best supported platform for accessibility is Windows. We lost a lot of custom accessibility programming when we had to move to a more recent version of the wxWidgets library.
Internationalization
Audacity is only partially translated in many languages. We also have some issues, for example, with Right-To-Left Languages.
Selected Bugzilla-Tracked Bugs
Click on the bug numbers to see work done on these bugs.
ID
P
Status
Summary (2 tasks) ⇒
P2
RESOLVED
If Temporary files directory is set to be unwritable then Audacity has a catalog of cryptic unhelpful errors
P2
RESOLVED
Audacity crashes with Macros on files when the macro-output folder is in an unwriteable location
This page is an overview of prominent new functionality that has been introduced in Audacity 3.0.3
Version 3.0.3 is primarily a maintenance release to fix bugs and increase the stability of the Unitary Project database structure.
Details of all the major changes since 3.0.2 can be found in Audacity 3.0.3.
For the first time, Audacity will now install as a 64-bit application on Windows devices. Due to this change, some processes and effects (e.g. certain sound generation processes & sliding stretch) will run much faster.
64-bit FFmpeg library: If you are a user of previous Audacity versions on Windows and had installed the optional FFmpeg library then you must now install the 64-bit versions of the FFmpeg library, otherwise your imports and exports that depend upon FFmpeg will no longer work. See Installing FFmpeg for Windows for installation details.
Installing the 64-bit FFmpeg library will not overwrite or delete your 32-bit FFmpeg library if you have one installed.
As Audacity is now a 64-bit application, 32-bit plug-ins will not work on Audacity 3.0.3 or later.
A new colorway has been introduced on Audacity 3.0.3 for Spectrograms.
The image below shows a sample track in Spectrogram view with a spectral selection:
If you wish to revert to the former colorway just go to and choose the Spectrograms tab and from there in the Scheme dropdown menu select Color (classic).
In addition to the Grayscale which was available as a choice for Spectrogram displays in earlier versions of Audacity there is now also an Inverse grayscale.
This too can be selected from the Scheme field in Spectrograms Preferences.
A new command has been added to the View menu, View > Track Name (on / off)
When this is enabled the audio track name is displayed superimposed translucently at top left of all audio tracks.
Note that the track name is always shown in the Track Control Panel but will be truncated if the name is too long to fit.
This has the same effect as the setting for Show track name as overlay in Tracks Preferences.
Audacity will now check for updates to see if a new update of Audacity is available. This is done on launch and then after every 12 hours while Audacity remains open.
The first time that you launch Audacity 3.0.3 you will see this dialog:
The dialog has a direct link to Application Preferences enabling you to turn update checking "off" in order to opt-out of update checking.
This is not an automatic update, update does not happen without you choosing to do so from the update checking dialog that appears when a new update is available.
This has long been one of the most-requested feature requests submitted by users to Audacity and it has finally been implemented.
You can opt-out of update checking by using a new preference in Application Preferences where you can turn this "off" or "on" at any time, the default setting is "on".
The setting you make in Application Preferences for update checking is not changed by Reset Configuration.
But if you manually reset by deleting the audacity.cfg file in your Audacity settings folder this will get reset to "on" on next launch of Audacity.
You will also get shown the update checking dialog again.
Now if and when Audacity crashes, or produces an error, there will be a dialog to enable you to optionally send error and crash reports back to the developers and Quality Assurance.
Not all error messages have the ability to automatically send back information to the developers and Quality Assurance.
We now provide an official binary for Linux in the form of an AppImage.
With the release of 3.0.3 Audacity has released the following Privacy Notice.
The Privacy Notice explains how Audacity collects and uses any information that, alone or in combination with other information, relates to you when you use the desktop application Audacity. We collect very limited Personal Data about you.
The Notice also sets out the rights that you have in relation to the Personal Data that we process about you and how you can exercise them.
In addition to the fixed bugs shown here, several changes have been made to increase the stability of the Unitary Project database structure.
P1 2754 - Change Tempo & Pitch and Sliding Stretch with selected audio in negative time crash Audacity on windows (error on Mac)
P1 2772 - Audacity crashes after failing to open corrupt project
P1 2793 - AUP3 projects fail to compact if project's path contains a single-quote
P1 2803 - Audacity unresponsive after 'Fit to Height'
P1 2805 - Audacity fails to export metadata with MP3 files
P2 2339 - On second run of Audacity "Filter Curve EQ" gets changed to "Filter Curve..." in the Effect menu
P2 2700 - "Failed to open the project database"
P2 2732 - Faux recovery offered on launch (very moonphase)
P2 2738 - Audacity crashes with Macros on files when the macro-output folder is in an unwriteable location
P2 2739 - If Temporary files directory is set to be unwritable then Audacity has a catalog of cryptic unhelpful errors
P2 2758 - Linux: No support for Jack Audio System
P2 2741 - Msgctxt feature of translation not working
P2 2743 - The first use of the "window" command in LOF files is ignored by Audacity
P2 2747 - The Macros output directory is in the top section in audacity.cfg
P2 2764 - Open Project... under ScriptablesII can corrupt a project
P2 2800 - Audio and MIDI files cannot be opened from FAT/FAT32 drives
P3 2671 - ENH: "Show track name as overlay" cannot be turned on from main menus
P3 2778 - In German in the Erzeugen menu (Generator menu) "Silence..." is untranslated
P3 2807 - Error message for a failed import of malforned MP3 lacks a "?" help button
P4 1309 - Paste with sync-lock can give error message but still do something
P4 1406 - Undoing envelope points by shortcut with mouse down creates spurious undo entries
P4 2466 - Linux: Filter Curve EQ GUI far too wide
P4 2759 - Failed Macro command leaves empty undo item in history
P4 2809 - Label Sounds fails when track sample rate is 22050 Hz
P5 1091 - Spectral Edit effects may have unpredictable results
With the release of Audacity 3.0.0 the project file structure of Audacity was changed significantly with the entire project contained in a single unified database file.
If you have already updated to 3.0.0 or 3.0.2 you should already be aware of this.
But if you are updating from any earlier 2.x Audacity version please read Updating from Audacity 2.x to Audacity 3.x.
Older Projects:
Audacity 3.x can usually open AUP files created in older 2.x.x versions of Audacity , but saving the project in 3.x will prevent it opening again in Audacity versions prior to 3.0.0.
Note that this will leave behind the old AUP file and its associated _data folder which you will probably want to delete to recover disk space.
Audacity version 3.x should be able to open projects from Audacity 1.1 onwards - but not from 1.0
Audacity Release Notes 3.0.3 - detailed release notes for this release of Audacity
