File Menu: Export

Click, or hover, on any menu item in the image to read about that command.

Exports

export stuff to go here

Save Compressed Copy of Project...

Saves a copy of your project in the compressed Ogg Vorbis format, each track being saved as a separate OGG file. When you quit Audacity you may still be prompted about saving changes. Saving changes would save a separate, standard uncompressed project as above, so if you do not want that you can quit Audacity without saving.

The resulting _data folder for the project is about eight times smaller than that created using either "Save Project" command, so this may be useful for sending projects to others. There will be some resulting loss of quality. Note that the quality loss will be increased each time a compressed project is resaved as a compressed project (for example, if you send a compressed project to someone else, and they then edit it and send it back to you as a compressed project).

Most project data will be retained, including labels, gain and pan settings, track positions on the timeline, track order and metadata. Clips will not be retained - spaces between clips will be converted to silence. Volume envelopes present when saving will be rendered, but the actual envelope points will be lost.

Opening a compressed project will be slower than opening a standard project, because the OGG files in the _data folder will be decompressed into Audacity's AU file format in order to work with the data. The AU files will be in a separate folder inside the _data folder. The OGG files will remain in the _data folder after opening the project, but they can be deleted to save disk space. Similarly when sending a saved compressed project to someone, you can delete any folders containing AU files that are inside the _data folder, because all the necessary data is in the AUP file and the OGG file(s).