# Preferences

### From Audacity Manual

Preferences let you change most of the default behaviors of Audacity. The Preferences dialog can be accessed using the Edit Menu (or by using the shortcut CTRL + P). On a Mac, Preferences is under the Audacity Menu (shortcut CMND + ,).

The Preferences dialog is split into sixteen sections:

  Section | What it controls
  --- | ---
  Devices | Choose audio host, playback and recording devices and recording channels.
  Playback | Length of previews for cuts and effects; playback seek times.
  Recording | Settings for playthrough, latency and Sound Activated Recording.
  Quality | Choose sample rate, sample format and options for rate and format conversion.
  Interface | Interface behaviors, dB display range, choose language and location of Manual, show initial "Help" dialog.
  Tracks | Tracks display and behavior; behavior of the Solo button.
  Import / Export | Importing: if audio is copied into projects, if tracks are normalized. Exporting: how audio is mixed, if Metadata Editor appears, Allegro exports.
  Extended Import | Specify different importers to open specific audio file extensions.
  Projects | Whether to copy in dependent audio files when saving projects, or ask.
  Libraries | Download and locate the optional LAME and FFmpeg libraries. Enable On-Demand Loading when using FFmpeg.
  Spectrograms | Settings for presentation of spectrograms.
  Directories | Location of the temporary files directory, play and/or record using RAM (useful for slow drives).
  Warnings | Warn or not when disk space is low on startup, when saving projects, mixing down or importing uncompressed audio files.
  Effects | Enable or disable effects by type: LADSPA, Nyquist, VAMP, Audio Units, VST. Control display of Audio Units and VST effects.
  Keyboard | Keyboard shortcuts for commands.
  Mouse | Mouse shortcuts for commands.

Note: Choice of export format (WAV, MP3 and others) is made at time of export in the File Export or Export Multiple dialogs by selecting the required export format then clicking the adjacent Options... button.

## Where are Preferences stored?

Starting with version 1.3 Audacity Preferences are stored in a configuration file called audacity.cfg. It is a text file saved on each clean exit of Audacity and can be edited with any text editor. The file is stored inside Audacity's folder for application data:

- Windows 98/ME: Windows\Application Data\Audacity
- Windows 2000/XP: Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Audacity
- Windows Vista/7: Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity\
- OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/
- Linux: ~/.audacity-data/

However if you create a folder called "Portable Settings" in the same directory as the Audacity executable, "audacity.cfg" will be stored there instead. If you copy this "Portable Settings" folder to a USB stick or CD this lets you take your current Audacity settings with you if you use Audacity on another computer.

## Resetting Preferences

Resetting preferences to factory defaults by editing audacity.cfg can sometimes fix freezes, crashes or unexplained behavior.

1. Exit Audacity
2. Open audacity.cfg in a text editor such as Notepad and remove all the content except the line NewPrefsInitialized=1 (should be the very first line)
3. Save the changes to audacity.cfg and restart Audacity

In order to see audacity.cfg on Windows, Linux and OS X 10.7, you need to show hidden files and folders. See instructions for Windows 7, Windows versions before 7 and OS X 10.7.

The above three steps will reset Audacity version 1.3 and newer Preferences in all cases. If you still use (or have ever used) Audacity 1.2, this will not affect your 1.2 Preferences.

| Merely exiting Audacity and deleting audacity.cfg will not completely reset Preferences if you have ever previously used a 1.2 version. Audacity 1.3 and newer Preferences which also apply to 1.2 will revert to their current 1.2 settings, which may not solve any problems you were trying to fix.

A less recommended way to completely reset Audacity version 1.3 and newer Preferences on a machine which has previously run 1.2 is to delete the old 1.2 settings file as well as audacity.cfg. This will completely remove your 1.2 settings which may not be appropriate if you plan to continue using 1.2. The 1.2 settings are stored in the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Audacity\, the "audacity" file in your Library (OS X) or the file ~/.audacity (Linux).

| Modifying the Windows Registry can be dangerous! Before modifying the Registry, always back it up, or set a System Restore point on Windows XP or later.

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