Error: Copying or Pasting

Linked This page is linked to in the Audacity app from the help button in the warning/error dialog.

Do not rename or delete this page unless and until the corresponding link in the app is changed. Pseudo renames can be achieved with a DISPLAYTITLE. If a rename is absolutely necessary then a redirect must be left behind.

This is essentially a landing page in the Manual for the handling of errors (via a help button) that occur in the Audacity application.

• There is also an entry in FAQ:Errors so that this page will get pulled into the released Manual.

This page shows two error situations you can encounter when using Copy (or Cut) and Paste.

For details on Copy and Paste please see Edit Menu: Copy, Paste and Duplicate.

Two warnings

There are two warnings that you get if you try to copy and paste incorrectly.

Pasting one type of track into another is not allowed

This means that you have tried to paste a track of one type (audio track, label track, note track) into another track not of the same type.

This does not make sense and is blocked by Audacity.

Copying stereo audio into a mono track is not allowed

While it is possible to copy from a mono track to a stereo track (Audacity places the same content in both the left and right channels) Audacity cannot paste from Stereo to mono as the two channels are likely to have different audio data.

If you need to do this you can: Mix and Render the stereo track to a new teporary mono track using Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render to New Track, Cut and Paste the required (now mixed mono) audio into the mono track. Delete the temporary mono mixed track.