File Menu: Save Project

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Saves the project in full uncompressed mode.
  • The current zoom level is saved in the project when you save the project.
  • When a saved project is opened, it should automatically be zoomed to the same place and zoom level as when you saved it.
Audacity projects are not intended to be read by other applications, but to provide fast loading and saving of audio within Audacity, with all project data such as label tracks and envelope points retained .

When you are finished working on a project and you want to use the results in another application, select the Export Audio command.

Advice A project in the new AUP3 format cannot be opened in previous versions of Audacity.
This menu has items to open, save, import and export files.The Edit Menu provides standard edit commands (Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete) plus many other commands specific to editing audio or labelsSelect Menu has commands that enable you make selections of tracks or parts of the tracks in your projectView Menu has commands that determine the amount of detail you see in all the tracks in the project window. It also lets you show or hide Toolbars and some additional windows such as Undo HistoryTransport Menu commands let you play or stop, loop play, scrub play or record (including timed and sound activated recordings)Tracks Menu provides commands for creating and removing tracks, applying operations to selected tracks such as mixing, resampling or converting from stereo to mono, and lets you add or edit labelsGenerate Menu lets you create audio containing tones, noise or silenceAudacity includes many built-in effects and also lets you use a wide range of plug-in effectsThe Analyze Menu contains tools for finding out about the characteristics of your audio, or labeling key featureThe Tools Menu contains customisable toolsThe Extra menu provides access to additional Commands that are not available in the normal default Audacity menusThe Help Menu lets you find out more about the Audacity application and how to use it. It also includes some diagnostic tools.Creates a new empty project window, to start working on new or imported tracksPresents you with a file selection dialog box to open filesLists the full path to the twelve most recently saved or opened projects or most recently imported audio filesCloses the current project window, prompting you to save your work if you have not savedVarious ways to save a projectFor exporting audio filesFor importing audio files or label files into your projectOpens the standard Page Setup dialog box prior to printingPrints all the waveforms in the current project window (and the contents of Label Tracks or other tracks), with the Timeline aboveCloses all project windows and exits AudacitySaves the current Audacity projectSame as "Save Project" above, but allows you to save a copy of an open project to a different name or locationSaves a backup of the current Audacity projectThe MenusFile-Save ProjectMenu.png
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Save Project  Ctrl + S

Saves the current Audacity Project in uncompressed, lossless quality in a database file with an aup3 extension, for example: My-Project.aup3.

Tip Help with choosing the file name:
  • Avoid periods (dots) in the file name, or you will have to add the extension such as .wav or .mp3 at the end of the name.
  • Some characters cannot be used on all operating systems or for email or Internet use, for example colons, semi-colons and slashes.
  • For maximum compatibility use only:
    • A to Z or a to z characters
    • whole numbers (0 to 9)
    • underscores "_" and dashes "-"
Tip You are strongly advised not to save your active project to an external USB stick/disk, networked storage or cloud storage as it is unlikely to be fast enough for satisfactory recording and editing.
  • It is also advisable not to save an active project to a drive that is compressed or encrypted as that may also slow Audacity and may cause dropouts when recording.
  • Audacity blocks you from using FAT/FAT32 disks for saving project files as they are limited to a maximum 4GB per single file and this can easily be exceeded when editing.


Save Project As

Same as "Save Project" above, but allows you to save a copy of an open project to a different name or location. This can be useful if you want to preserve a copy of the state of a project at a particular time, then proceed to make further changes to the new renamed project you just saved.

If you "Save Project As" with a new name, the project window then displays the project name you just "saved as". The project window displaying the project as previously named is closed in its last saved state, but can be reopened as required.

Tip You can use "Save Project As" to overwrite an existing project - but you will be given a warning message requesting that you confirm that you really want to do that, and please note that for safety reasons this warning cannot be turned off.


Backup Project

Saves a backup copy of the current Audacity Project in uncompressed, lossless quality, leaving the current project open for you to continue working on it.

This is the safe and recommended way to make a safety backup copy of a project as you work on it. This could serve either as as one of several incremental copies of the project in the state it had at a particular date and time. Unlike "Save As" using this command will leave your current project open enabling you to continue working on it.

You cannot backup a project to overwrite any existing project name within the target folder, you must specify a new unique name.

Unlike with active projects, it is fine to backup projects to a USB disk/stick, a networked device, cloud storage or even a CD-R, but if you need to restore a backup copy to do further work on it then you should copy the backup to a disk on your computer.

Advice There is a known bug whereby Backup Project fails to honor the setting for Saves in Directories Preferences.
  • If you have set a preferred location far Saving in Directories Preferences Audacity will ignore that and offer instead the Audacity default location:
    • On Windows: C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Audacity
    • On macOS: HD/Users/<username>/Documents
Tip The wise user knows that hard drives and SSDs (Solid State Disks) can crash destroying all data and makes regular backups to external storage.
  • The cautious user makes duplicate backups to at least two different external storage devices.
  • The extremely cautious user ensures that at least one of those backups is held off-site.


Warning on exiting Audacity to save the project

When you try to exit from or close Audacity if changes have been made to the project you will get the following warning prompting you to save the project.

Warning to save project.png
This warning cannot be turned off via any setting in Warnings Preferences.


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