FAQ:Opening and Saving Files
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How do I open an Audacity project (AUP file) in another program?
Audacity project files are saved in a special format that only Audacity can open. To open your project in another program or burn it to CD, firstly open the .aup file in Audacity if you have already saved one (if you saved it recently it will be in the File > Recent Files menu). Then use the Export commands further down the File menu to save the audio in a standard format like WAV or AIFF.
To learn more about working with Audacity projects, please see our File Management Tips on the Audacity Wiki.
Why does Audacity create a folder full of .au files when I save a project?
Audacity breaks long tracks into small pieces so it can edit them more efficiently. When you save an .aup project file, Audacity stores all the pieces in a _data folder that has the same name as the .aup file. For example, "song.aup" will open the pieces inside the "song_data" folder.
You should not touch the .au files yourself, or move or rename the _data folder. Simply open the .aup file, then Audacity will load the .au files in the correct sequence automatically.
To learn more about working with Audacity projects, please see our File Management Tips on the Audacity Wiki.
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Other Frequently Asked Questions...
Audacity crashed! Can I recover any unsaved data?
You may be able to recover your project automatically with the Audacity Recovery Utility. Please see the Crash Recovery page for more information.
Please note the .au files need to be numbered consecutively when input to the Crash Recovery Utility or errors will occur in the program. If this problem occurs you can open Audacity's temporary folder in your system File Manager (e.g., Windows Explorer) and try resorting the .au files by time modified and then batch renaming them using a numeric sequence whilst they are sorted by time modified. An arrangement looking something like this should work:
- b001.au 15:56:02
- b002.au 15:56:02
- b003.au 15:56:10
- b004.au 15:56:10
If your file manager does not have a suitable renaming tool, you should be able to obtain suitable free tools on the Internet.
Other Frequently Asked Questions...
Can Audacity import file formats like WMA, AAC, FLAC, etc.?
Audacity cannot import or export files in WMA, AAC, RealAudio, Shorten (SHN), or most other proprietary formats, or any kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected file, including many purchased online such as on iTunes or Napster. Because of licensing and patent restrictions, we are not allowed to add these formats to Audacity. Future versions of Audacity might be able to support these formats using codecs installed in your operating system.
Some open formats are not yet supported by Audacity, including Ogg, Speex and FLAC. We hope to support these formats in future versions of Audacity.
Audacity can currently import WAV, AIFF, AU, MP2/MP3 and OGG Vorbis files. If you cannot import your file into Audacity, you can as a workround convert it to WAV or AIFF. As long as it is not a DRM-protected file, you could do this with iTunes® or with SUPER player. If it is a DRM-protected file, you can burn it to an audio CD in the application that is licensed to play it, then extract (rip) the CD track to WAV or AIFF. On Windows, you can use Windows Media Player 11, iTunes®, or CDex to extract to WAV. Or you can play the file on your computer and record it – see Can Audacity record RealAudio or other streaming audio?.
For more detail on supported formats, see the feature list.
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