Edit Menu

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The Edit Menu provides standard edit commands (Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete) plus many other commands specific to editing audio or labels.

There are many commands available from this menu so some commands are grouped into submenus.

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.Undoes the most recent editing actionRedoes the most recently undone editing actionRemoves the selected audio data and/or labels and places these on the Audacity clipboardRemoves the selected audio data and/or labels without copying these to the Audacity clipboardCopies the selected audio data to the Audacity clipboard without removing it from the projectInserts whatever is on the Audacity clipboard at the position of the selection cursor in the project, replacing whatever audio data is currently selected, if anyCreates a new track containing only the current selection as a new clipFor more "advanced" removal of audioCreate or remove separate clips in the audio trackThese commands are to add and edit labelsLabeled Audio commands apply standard Edit Menu commands to the audio of one or more regions that are labeledThe Metadata Editor modifies information about a track, such as the artist and genrePreferences let you change most of the default behaviors and settings of AudacityThe MenusEditMenu.png
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Mac users: Ctrl = ⌘ and Alt = Option. So, for example, Ctrl + Alt + K = ⌘ + Option + K

Undo  Ctrl + Z

Undoes the last editing operation you performed to your project. You can undo as many times as you want, all the way back to when you opened the window. To undo many operations, select History... from the View Menu. The name of this menu item will change to reflect what will be undone; if you just recorded some audio, the menu item name will be Undo Record.

Redo  Ctrl + Y

Redoes any editing operations that were just undone. After you perform a new editing operation, you can no longer redo the operations that were undone.

Cut  Ctrl + X

Removes the selected audio data and/or labels and places these on the Audacity clipboard. Audio or labels after the selection move leftwards.

There is a setting in Tracks Behaviors Preferences to enable cut lines. Cut lines facilitate the restoration of audio that has previously been removed by Edit> > Cut.

Please see Preferences settings that affect Edit behavior for a detailed explanation of how cut lines work in Audacity.

Delete  Ctrl + K

Similar to Cut, but removes the audio data and/or labels that are currently selected without copying them to the Audacity clipboard.

Copy  Ctrl + C

Copies the selected audio data to the Audacity clipboard without removing it from the project.

Paste  Ctrl + V

Pastes audio which has been cut or copied to the Audacity clipboard, either inserting it into the selected track(s) at the cursor point, or replacing the current selection region(s).

Duplicate  Ctrl + D

Creates a new track containing only the current selection as a new clip.

Remove Special

The Remove Special submenu has commands for more "advanced" removal of audio and labels:

  • Split Cut and Split Delete are a "special" cut or delete which make the audio or labels to right of the selection stay in current position instead of moving leftwards.
  • Silence Audio replaces the current selection with silence.
  • Trim Audio removes all audio from the current clip except the selected part, creating its own clip from the remaining, selected, audio.

Clip Boundaries

The Clip Boundaries submenu has commands to create or remove separate clips in the audio track. A clip inside an audio track is a separate section of that track which has been split so that it can be manipulated somewhat independently of the other clips in the track.

Labels

The Labels submenu has commands that enable you to add and edit labels.

This command invokes the Labels Editor which lets you add or remove Label Tracks and edit their labels entirely using the keyboard, so is particularly useful for visually impaired users.

It brings up a dialog box showing all of your labels in a keyboard-accessible tabular view. Handy buttons in the dialog let you insert or delete a label, or import and export labels to a file. See Labels Editor for more details.

See Edit Menu: Labels for details of this submenu.

Labeled Audio

The Labeled Audio submenu has commands that offer a time saving way of performing Edit Menu operations on the audio of multiple fully selected region labels.

The commands apply to all labeled audio regions that are fully inside a selection drawn in a label track. The selection may extend beyond the label boundaries, but audio that is not labeled and audio whose region label is only partly within the selection will not be acted on.

If none of the audio tracks are included in the selection, the Labeled Audio commands apply to all audio tracks in the project. However if you include only certain audio tracks in the selection, the Labeled Audio commands will only affect those selected audio tracks.

See Edit Menu: Labeled Audio for details of this submenu.

Metadata...

Use this function to edit the metadata tags that will be applied to exported files.

Preferences...  Ctrl + P

Displays the Preferences dialog. Preferences enable you change most of the default behaviors and settings of Audacity.