Audacity 3.0.4 was released on 24. Aug 2021.

Changes and improvements since previous version

Audacity 3.0.4 replaces all previous versions.

This is a hotfix release that fixes a bug with envelope points, which could multiply uncontrollably and cause Audacity to crash. In particular:

• : Envelope points are multiplied when using Filter Curve EQ or Graphic EQ

• : Filter Curve EQ will crash if there is an envelope point outside of the selection

This fix re-introduces an earlier, but way less destructive bug:

• / : Some effects delete Envelope Control Points, or do not move them when timeline changes

Other than that, this release is identical to Version 3.0.3.

Supported Platforms

Windows

• Audacity 3.0.4 requires the CPU to support the 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 .

  • If your hardware only supports SSE, you may download Audacity 2.0.6 see the page on the Audacity Website.

macOS / Mac OS X

• Audacity 3.0.4 is for Intel Macs running OS X 10.7 and later and macOS.

  • There are legacy versions for older OS X at .

Linux

• Linux support is tested on Ubuntu Linux.

  • Other Linux distributions should work, but aren't tested by the Audacity team.

Audacity 3.0.0 was released on 17th Mar 2021.

Checksums

Changes and improvements since previous version

Audacity 3.0.0 replaces all previous versions.

• Over 150 bugs fixed since 2.4.2

Full details of new features in the visual guide to

Supported Platforms

Windows

• Audacity 3.0.0 requires the CPU to support the 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 .

  • If your hardware only supports SSE, you may download Audacity 2.0.6 see the page on the Audacity Website.

macOS / Mac OS X

• Audacity 3.0.0 is for Intel Macs running OS X 10.7 and later and macOS.

  • There are legacy versions for older OS X at .

Linux

• Linux support is tested on Ubuntu Linux.

  • Audacity may compile on Gentoo, Debian, Mint.

  • Audacity does not currently compile on SuSE Linux.

Interactive Buglist Page

We probably track more bugs than you are interested in...

On the dynamic buglist page you can select to view:

• Complete list of bugs in 2.4.2 that we have fixed for 3.0.0

• Known bugs on the OS you use Mac, Windows or Linux.

• Known bugs to do with accessibility or localization.

• Workarounds for some bugs.

You can choose various combinations of these. However, there are probably too many minor bugs and too much detail on that for most users.

We do use this detail in our own QA work.

Highlighted Issues

• Below are listed what we believe are the most common and important issues with 3.0.0 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.

Audacity 3.0.2 was released on 19th Apr 2021.

Checksums

Changes and improvements since previous version

Audacity 3.0.2 replaces all previous versions.

• Over 30 bugs fixed since 3.0.0

Full details of new features in the visual guide to

Supported Platforms

Windows

• Audacity 3.0.2 requires the CPU to support the 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 .

  • If your hardware only supports SSE, you may download Audacity 2.0.6 see the page on the Audacity Website.

macOS / Mac OS X

• Audacity 3.0.2 is for Intel Macs running OS X 10.7 and later and macOS.

  • There are legacy versions for older OS X at .

Linux

• Linux support is tested on Ubuntu Linux.

  • Audacity may compile on Gentoo, Debian, Mint.

  • Audacity does not currently compile on SuSE Linux.

Buglists

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 for current bug status.

We do use this detail in our own QA work.

Highlighted Issues

Below are listed what we believe are the most common and important issues with 3.0.2 for most users.

macOS Big Sur

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.

Audacity 3.0.3 was released on the 26th of July, 2021

Changes and improvements since previous version

Key improvements:

• Windows version is now 64-bit

Audacity 3.0.5 was released on 29 Sep 2021.

Changes and improvements since previous version

Audacity 3.0.5 replaces all previous macOS versions.

This is a hotfix release that fixes a bug on macOS that could corrupt project files when being opened via cmd+o on languages where the decimal separator wasn't a dot.

Other than that, this release is identical to Version 3.0.3.

This page is an overview of prominent new functionality that has been introduced in Audacity 3.0.0

Version 3.0.0 is primarily a release for a unitary, single self-contained, project file.

• Details of all the major changes since 2.4.2 can be found in Audacity 3.0.

Unitary Project

Audacity 3.0.0 introduces the new AUP3 project format. Project files saved with this version will have an aup3 extension, for example My-Project.aup3. We believe that this new project format will make life easier for Audacity users, as it replaces the previous project storage format - which used an AUP file and its associated _data folder full of little audio clips - with a single project file that integrates those two parts.

The old structure caused too many users to lose or damage their projects by moving or deleting the project components. The new single project file structure precludes that happening.

Project size

Saved Projects with the new unified file structure should not be larger than similar projects with the old multiple files structure.

As you work on a project, Audacity will consume additional temporary disk space. This is normally released on closing the project. This is not new with Unitary Project File, previous versions of Audacity also used to do this.

Performance

Extensive speed testing has shown that for most work in Audacity the new project file can be a little faster than the old project structure.

This is especially true of using the Effects and Generators which run faster with the new project file.

Automatic Recovery

Automatic Recovery (following a crash) is different in Audacity 3.0.0. It is simpler with no orphan block-files or missing block-files to worry about

• When Audacity is launched following a crash it will offer to recover the crashed projects.

• You can choose to either accept the recovery or to discard the projects.

• You can select projects for either action by clicking on their checkbox, or you can select all by clicking on Select.

Temporary work files

In addition to the single database project file the database also creates two temporary work files WAL & SHM files. For example My-Project.aup3-wal and My-Project.aup3-shm. On Mac there is only the WAL file.

These are deleted on closure of the project or on exit from Audacity.

Backing up your project

There is a new backup command for projects: File > Save Project > Backup Project.

This saves a copy of the current project as an AUP3 file, but with a new name. It is the safe and recommended way to make a safety backup copy of a project as you work on it.

• This could serve either as a single backup copy of the project, or as one of several incremental copies of the project in the state it had at a particular date and time.

• Unlike "Save Project As..." using this command will leave your current project open enabling you to continue working on it.

Two new Languages added

• Corsican language has been added for 3.0.0, thanks to Patriccollu.

• Marathi language has been added for 3.0.0, thanks to Mukul Kulkarni.

Thanks also to all our regular translators who brought translations up to date for 3.0.0.

Label Sounds replaces Sound Finder and Silence Finder

A new analyzer has been introduced called Label Sounds. It supersedes and replaces the old Sound Finder and Silence Finder analyzers.

Label Sounds is a tool which can useful to label the different songs or sections (or silences) in a long recording, such as the tracks from an LP or cassette.

This analyzer is an upgrade of the old Sound Finder from previous versions of Audacity. It is more accurate, and more versatile than previous versions, supporting both region labels and point labels.

Accessed by: Analyze > Label Sounds...

It detects the audio level in the selected track(s). When the track level exceeds a specified threshold level, the audio is considered to be "sound", and when below the level it is considered to be "silence".

There are options to add point labels before or after each detected sound, region labels around each sound, or region labels between each sound (effectively labeling the silences).

You can still continue to use this Sound Finder if it is present in your Audacity app as a result of an earlier Audacity version download.

Enhanced Directories preferences

Default folder locations have been added enabling you to specify the folders to be used for each of the Audacity actions: Open, Save, Import and Export.

If you set a default folder for any of those actions Audacity will always offer that folder location when you invoke that action.

If a particular action's default folder is left blank (default setting) then Audacity will offer the last-used location for that action.

The default setting is for all to be blank.

See Directories Preferences for more details.

Improvements to Macros

Import and Export of Macros

Import and Export of Macros has been added to the Manage Macros dialog.

Only one Macro can be imported or exported at a time.

Comments in Macros

Comments can now be added to Macros to enable you to document what is happening in the Macro.

There is a new command "Comment" in the Macro command set. Editing its parameters enables you to type the text of your comment.

Noise Gate improved

The Noise Gate effect has been improved for version 3.0.0 of Audacity. It now supports faster Attack times (down to 1ms), and provides separate controls for Attack, Hold and Decay. The effect can also process much longer selections in one pass (up to 13.5 hours at a sample rate of 44,100 Hz.)

Multi-view can be set as user-default view

In Tracks preferences you can now set Multi-view as your preferred user-default view for tracks.

Preferences settings that affect Edit behavior

We realized that we had a couple of settings in Tracks Behaviors Preferences that affect the operation of the Cut, Paste, and Delete editing commands in perhaps unexpected ways:

• Editing a clip can move other clips

• Enable Cut lines

So a new page was added to the Manual to explain the subtleties of these behaviors. See .

Mixer Board improvement

We have changed Mixer Board so that its window always remains on top when it is in use.

Many users have requested this and the original developer always wanted to do this but could not at the time because of issues with the libraries used for this feature.

These libraries have been updated by the provider and we can now make Mixer Board a top window on all three platforms.

Repeat last Generator, Analyzer or Tool

A Repeat last used command has been added for Generators, Analyzers and Tools. These are not in the menus but are "ghost" commands that you can assign custom shortcuts to.

This enables you to simply repeat the last generator, analyzer or tool that you used, with the last settings that you used.

Nyquist Upgrade

Nyquist has been updated to the latest Nyquist Version 3.16

This has enabled us to clear a lot of long-standing Nyquist-related Audacity bugs.

Bug Fixes

A large number of bugs were fixed for this release.

Here is a small selection of some of the most important.

Key P1 bugs fixed

• P1 - Some effects (including equalization effects) delete Envelope Control Points, or do not move them when timeline changes

• P1 - Change Pitch effect may create spurious clip at end

• P1 - Linux: Crash when applying or previewing Sliding Stretch effect on stereo track

Key P2 bugs fixed

• P2 - Mac: COMMAND + V paste limitations in standard file save dialogs

• P2 - Mac: Cut/Copy from file save dialogs using shortcuts does not work

• P2 - No error/warning message when using a missing aliased audio file

Key P3 bugs fixed

• P3 - Noise Reduction preview failure when track rate is different from project rate

• P3 - Sound Activated Recording fails when recording meter disabled

• P3 - Equalization effects ignore and remove any amplitude envelope

Links

- detailed release notes for this release of Audacity

This page is an overview of prominent new functionality that has been introduced in Audacity 3.0.4

Version 3.0.4 is a hotfix release.

Contents

Fixed a bug with envelope points, which could multiply uncontrollably and cause Audacity to crash. In particular:

• : Envelope points are multiplied when using Filter Curve EQ or Graphic EQ

• : Filter Curve EQ will crash if there is an envelope point outside of the selection

Updating from Audacity 2.x to Audacity 3.x

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 any 3.x version 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.

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

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.

The Windows version of Audacity is now 64-bit

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.

New colorways for Spectrograms

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:

Classic colorway

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).

Additional grayscale

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.

Display of Track Name

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.

Update checking

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 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.

Opt-out

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".

Automated crash and error reporting

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.

New official binary for Linux

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 .

• 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.

Bug fixes

In addition to the fixed bugs shown here, several changes have been made to increase the stability of the Unitary Project database structure.

P1 Bugs

• P1 - Change Tempo & Pitch and Sliding Stretch with selected audio in negative time crash Audacity on windows (error on Mac)

• P1 - Audacity crashes after failing to open corrupt project

• P1 - AUP3 projects fail to compact if project's path contains a single-quote

P2 Bugs

• P2 - On second run of Audacity "Filter Curve EQ" gets changed to "Filter Curve..." in the Effect menu

• P2 - "Failed to open the project database"

• P2 - Faux recovery offered on launch (very moonphase)

P3 Bugs

• P3 - ENH: "Show track name as overlay" cannot be turned on from main menus

• P3 - In German in the Erzeugen menu (Generator menu) "Silence..." is untranslated

• P3 - Error message for a failed import of malforned MP3 lacks a "?" help button

P4 Bugs

• P4 - Paste with sync-lock can give error message but still do something

• P4 - Undoing envelope points by shortcut with mouse down creates spurious undo entries

• P4 - Linux: Filter Curve EQ GUI far too wide

P5 Bugs

• P5 - Spectral Edit effects may have unpredictable results

Updating from Audacity 2.x to Audacity 3.x

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 .

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

Links

- detailed release notes for this release of Audacity

This page is an overview of prominent new functionality that has been introduced in Audacity 3.0.2

Version 3.0.2 is primarily a maintenance release.

• Details of all the major changes since 3.0.0 can be found in Audacity 3.0.2.

Overview

Audacity 3.0.2 is about bugfixes for Audacity 3.0.0. Some bugs which didn't show up in our testing of 3.0.0 became apparent once 3.0.0 was being used by more users. We wanted to fix these and also to get more diagnostic information about what goes wrong when SQLite (the database we use) can't read or write a file. So we added more informative diagnostics for when there is an error.

One cluster of bugs we fixed relate to Unicode. Unicode is a system for representing many non-English letters and symbols. We, Microsoft and Apple all have made mistakes with Unicode that affected Audacity 3.0.0. One during 3.0.0 turned out to be a Windows update issue with Unicode input, which was resolved by a later Windows update. Disappearing checkmarks in macOS Big Sur release turned out to be a Unicode issue, believed to be in Apple code, which we in 3.0.2. A with Unicode prevented Audacity working in Korean and Japanese.

Some of our bug-fixes are small changes in areas where the previous Audacity behaviour was not as we wanted. 3.0.2 may only be a 'point' release, but we think it's one most people using 3.0.0 will want.

Bugs we've had trouble with

After 3.0.0 was launched a few users discovered a couple of mysterious bugs which we had not encountered in our extensive QA testing of alpha and Release Candidate builds. These two important bugs that 3.0.0 users saw were hard for us to track down as we could not replicate them. We added extra diagnostic information to help us do that:

Error: Failed to open database file

There was an error which only occurred occasionally for a few users but had us mystified. Usually this seemed to occur when trying to import an audio file, but there may have been other ways it could happen. It did not appear to be causing users to experience data loss or damaged projects. It was this bug:

We added a Show Log to this error message so we could gather more information about this to aid the developers in analyzing the issue. This led to what's probably a solution, as Jack L, with this extra logging, was able to get the problem sufficiently often for us to get a handle on it. This extra information told us that in some circumstances we were trying to access the disk before it was ready again, with back to back requests too quickly. Paul then changed the logic of opening a database so that two important requests were always one after the after. This should address the opening issue. Leland added a retry, so that if SQLite can't yet read the database, it tries again, but fractionally later. The retry timeout should benefit all code in Audacity that reads the database, not just at the time of opening. Jack L then ran his torture tests workload and the problem he experienced was gone.

Even so, because the original error was only occasional, we can't know for sure that it, or similar issues, are gone! We still have the extra logging in Audacity. If you do encounter the dialog indicating a problem, please click on the Show Log chevron to generate the log and send us a copy of the screenshot to the . You may see a variant of the message, "The project's database failed to reopen"

False recovery offered on launch

This is another mysterious issue which only occurred very occasionally and was foxing us.

Sometimes after exiting Audacity without saving the project when offered, on the next relaunch a false recovery can be offered when there is really nothing to be recovered as no crash has occurred to cause this. We think this error had the same underlying cause, but we don't know for sure.

This bug is . If you encounter this and accept this recovery it "recovers" an empty project and no damage is done.

If you do see this error, please let us know what you can of how it happened.

Updating from Audacity 2.x to Audacity 3.x

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 you should already be aware of this.

But if you are updating from any earlier 2.x Audacity version please read .

Manage Macros improvements

The Manage Macros dialog has been improved for this release:

1. The Cancel button has been removed

2. It is replaced with a Close button

3. A new Save button has been added to enable you to save the results of editing a Macro.

The Save button is grayed-out until you edit a Macro.

Changes in Macros working on files

We have extended the options in Directories Preferences to include a new entry for Macro output.

If you leave the entry for Macro output blank then Audacity will default to creating a folder called "macro-output" in:

• Windows: C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\Audacity

• Mac: /Users/<your username>/Documents

Bug Fixes

P1 Bugs Fixed

• Nyquist effects fail silently with One hour plus stereo

• Win: Vocal Reduction and Isolation most options fail

• Noise Gate fails silently if "hold" is non-zero

P2 Bugs Fixed

• Progress dialog interferes with scripting

• (Japanese & Korean) "Unable to parse project information"

• Noise Gate fails on a one hour stereo selection

P3 Bugs Fixed

• VST_PATH environment variable fails for non-standard locations

• Nyquist: Audacity crashes when running seq-write-smf

• In Macros, Record New Track and Play with a selection do not wait for completion.

P4 Bugs Fixed

• Noise Gate 'Level Reduction' has a minimum of -60 dB

• Enh: Some preference changes are not written until Audacity exits

• Linux: Internal Error at DBConnection.cpp line 275

Links

- detailed release notes for this release of Audacity