Preferences
The Preferences dialog can be selected from the Edit Menu or using the shortcut CTRL + P (CMND + P on Macs). Here you can change many of the default behaviors of Audacity. The dialog is split into nine sections, each of which have their own clickable tab:
- Audio I/O : To select Audio devices and their properties.
- Quality : To select data rates and other trade offs between speed, size and quality.
- Import / Export : Location of the LAME MP3 library. Whether imported audio is copied into projects, if tracks are normalized, how audio is mixed upon export.
- Interface : Interface behavior, hiding and showing of additional information, language and preferred dB display range.
- Spectrograms : Presentation of spectrogram.
- Directories : Where temporary files are stored and how often to autosave.
- //// Batch : Used for a chain of commands applied to a number of audio files. Will almost certainly be removed/////
- Keyboard : Keyboard shortcuts for commands.
- Mouse : Mouse shortcuts for commands.
Where are preferences stored?
Audacity Preferences are stored in a configuration file called audacity.cfg. It is a text file and can be edited with any text editor. If for any reason you wish to reset your Preferences to factory settings, simply delete audacity.cfg. The configuration file is stored at:
- Windows: Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Audacity\audacity.cfg
- OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/audacity.cfg
- Linux: ~/.audacity-data/audacity.cfg
However if you a create a directory called "Portable Settings" in the same directory as the Audacity executable, "audacity.cfg" will be stored there instead. This facilitates transfer of the user's customized settings (for example, via a USB stick) if Audacity is used on another computer. Note: a workround is needed where audacity.cfg is on a computer running OS X.
