Audacity Plugins

This site features download links to various plugins for Audacity, which can be used to extend Audacity's functionality to better match your workflow.

On this site you can find download links for equalizer plugins, filter plugins, delay and reverb plugins, and more. If you'd like to download many plugins at once, you also can try entire plugin suites.

All plugins in the realtime effects section can be used instantly and non-destructively from the effects panel in Audacity.

This means that you can change the effect settings while playing, and come back to your settings after doing many other things - without the need to undo anything, or to wait for the effect to be applied to the track.

Further information about using realtime effects can be found here:

Installing plugins

When you install plugins, they're automatically enabled the next time you restart Audacity. Alternatively, you can also locate and enable them via Effect -> Plugin Manager -> Rescan Plugins. Further instructions can be found here:

  • ACX Check, a plugin to check if an audio book complies with the ACX guidelines

  • MuseFX, an effects library from Audacity's sister project.

  • FFmpeg, a library to import and export various media formats such as M4A, WMA and MP4.

Contributing to this site

If you want to add your own plugin, or one that you found on the web, read the contributing instructions.

Plugin formats supported by Audacity

Nyquist plugins

Audacity has built-in support for Nyquist effects on all operating systems. You can download additional Nyquist plugins, or create your own using the Nyquist programming language. Nyquist code can be conveniently tested using "Nyquist Prompt" under the Effect menu.

LV2 plugins

Audacity has built-in support for LV2 plugins, which are an extensible successor of LADSPA effects. LV2 plugins are mostly built for Linux, but Audacity supports LV2 on all operating systems. To install LV2 plugins, place them in the system LV2 location then use the Plugin Manager to enable the new plugins as in the plugin installation instructions.

VST plugins

Audacity can load VST effects (but not VST instruments) on all operating systems.

VST3 plugins

Starting with Audacity 3.2, VST3 effects are also supported on all operating systems.

Audio Unit plugins

On Mac OS X only, you can add Audio Unit plugins to the system plugin directories.

LADSPA plugins

LADSPA is superseded by LV2. These plugins are mostly built for Linux.

Other sources

This site is only meant as a starting point for effects. There are many more plugins, particularly VST3 ones, available on various vendor sites, directories and online stores. Some of them are listed below:

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