File Export Dialog

Clicking Export... on the File Menu opens the Export File dialog.

The Export File dialog lets you specify folder location, file name and format (Save as type) for your exported file.

The Options button opens another dialog for making settings like quality or Encoding for formats with options. Here are examples for the Uncompressed and MP3 formats:

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Always select the "Save as type" before clicking the Options button.

For details about the available options for each format click its link in the following list of "Save as types":

• Other uncompressed files: includes all the uncompressed audio formats that Audacity can export. This menu item defaults to WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM (or to AIFF (Apple/SGI) signed 16-bit PCM on Mac).
  ToDo Could someone on Mac initialise Preferences and verify if the above does default to AIFF on Mac?
• AIFF (Apple) signed 16 bit PCM and WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM: there are no options for these formats. WAV and AIFF are lossless formats which can be opened on either Windows or Mac computers. Choose WAV or AIFF 16-bit PCM whenever you want to burn your exported file to an audio CD.
• GSM 6.10 WAV (mobile): there are no options for this format. It produces a WAV file encoded with the GSM 6.10 codec. This is a lossy voice codec producing small file sizes, used on GSM mobile digital telephone networks.
• MP3 Files: MP3 is a popular compressed, lossy format producing much smaller file sizes than WAV or AIFF, at the expense of some loss of quality. This format defaults to 128 kbps bit rate, resulting in a file of about 1 MB size per minute of audio. Note: You will need to download the optional LAME encoder to export to MP3.
• OGG Vorbis Files: Ogg Vorbis is a compressed, lossy format similar to MP3; it offers higher quality than MP3 for the same file size but fewer applications can play this format.
• FLAC Files: FLAC is a compressed format, but remains lossless. FLAC files are larger than MP3s and OGGs, normally taking about 4 MB per minute of audio.
• MP2 Files: MP2 is a compressed, lossy format similar to MP3; it defaults to 160 kbps bit rate. This produces comparable quality to 128 kbps MP3, but larger files. It is mainly used at higher bit rates in DVD soundtracks and radio broadcasting.
• (external program): sends audio via the command line to an external application either for processing or for encoding as a file. This is a method to export to an alternative MP3 encoder, or to a format not supported by Audacity.
• FFmpeg formats: The following export types marked "(FFmpeg)" are listed in released builds of Audacity on Windows and Mac, and in other builds where FFmpeg is enabled. They will only function if you install the optional FFmpeg library.
  • M4A (AAC) Files: Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor to the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates.
  • AC3 Files: the common name used for the codec used in Dolby Digital.
  • AMR (narrow band) or (wide band) Files: the Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) codec is a patented compression scheme optimized for speech, but also used for mobile telephone ringtones. The wide band variant uses higher bandwidth for higher quality. Note: AMR (wide band) export will not be available in release builds on Windows and Mac. On Linux, AMR support is unlikely to be available unless you compile FFmpeg yourself with AMR enabled. These restrictions are due to licensing issues.
  • WMA (version 2) Files: Windows Media Audio (WMA) is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework.
  • Custom FFmpeg Export: Allows choice of the specific codec to use in the formats listed above, or to export to some additional formats not otherwise available. Note: not all formats and codecs are compatible, and some exports might result in zero-byte or invalid files if FFmpeg does not support the combination chosen.