Scripting reference

This page lists scripting commands.

Yes these are the same commands as in the menus, same as in "Commands and Shortcuts" too, just presented differently.

  • Presented in a format useful to people using:

    • Macros or

    • Python Scripting or

    • AUD-DO.

  • Most of this page is automatically generated.

A few commands are intentionally omitted from the Macro Manager (such as "Close:") because they are unsuitable for use in Macros.

This table shows the items in the menus that are scriptable.

  • The Scripting Ids, parameters and defaults are all likely to change between versions.

  • Boolean values must be given as 1 (true) or 0 (false).

File Menu

The File Menu provides commands for creating, opening and saving Audacity projects and importing and exporting audio files

File: Save Project

Various ways to save a project.

File: Export

For exporting audio files

File: Import

For importing audio files or label files into your project

Edit Menu

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

Edit: Remove Special

For more "advanced" removal of audio

Edit: Clip Boundaries

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.

Edit: Labels

These commands are to add and edit labels.

Edit: Labeled Audio

Labeled Audio commands apply standard Edit Menu commands to the audio of one or more regions that are labeled. The labels themselves are not affected.

Select Menu

Select Menu has commands that enable you make selections of tracks or parts of the tracks in your project.

Select: Tracks

Tracks

Select: Region

For modifying, saving and restoring a selection.

Select: Spectral

For making a selection of a frequency range.

Select: Clip Boundaries

For modifying a selection, taking account of clips.

View Menu

View 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 History.

View: Zoom

Zoom in/out on the horizontal axis. Show more detail or show a longer length of time.

View: Track Size

Controls the sizes of tracks.

View: Skip to

Move forward/backwards through the audio

View: Toolbars

Toolbars can be used to determine which of the Audacity toolbars are displayed. By default all toolbars are shown except Spectral Selection and Scrub

Transport Menu

Transport Menu commands let you play or stop, loop play, scrub play or record (including timed and sound activated recordings).

Transport: Playing

These commands control playback in Audacity. You can Start, Stop or Pause playback of the audio in your project.

Transport: Recording

These commands control recording in Audacity. You can Start, Stop or Pause recording in your project. You can either start a recording on your existing track or on a new track.

Transport: Scrubbing

Scrubbing is the action of moving the mouse pointer right or left so as to adjust the position, speed or direction of playback, listening to the audio at the same time - a convenient way to quickly navigate the waveform to find a particular event of interest. Speed changes are made by rotating the mouse wheel while scrubbing.

Transport: Cursor to

These commands let you move the cursor to the start or end of the selection, track or any adjacent Clip that you may have

Transport: Transport Options

This submenu lets you manage and set various options for transport (playing and recording) in Audacity

Tracks Menu

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 labels.

Tracks: Add New

Adds a new track

Tracks: Mix

Mixes down selected tracks to mono or stereo tracks

Tracks: Mute/Unmute

Mutes or unmutes audio tracks in the project

Tracks: Pan

Pans left right or center audio tracks in the project

Tracks: Align Tracks

Commands that provide an automatic way of aligning selected tracks with the cursor, the selection, or with the start of the project.

Tracks: Sort Tracks

Sorts all tracks in the project from top to bottom in the project window, by Start Time or by Name.

Generate Menu

Generate Menu lets you create audio containing tones, noise or silence.

Generate: Built-in

Shows the list of available Audacity built-in effects but only if the user has effects "Grouped by Type" in Effects Preferences.

Generate: Nyquist

Shows the list of available Nyquist effects but only if the user has effects "Grouped by Type" in Effects Preferences.

Effects Menu

Audacity includes many built-in effects and also lets you use a wide range of plugin effects.

Effect: Built-in

No special notes for Built-in

Effect: Nyquist

No special notes for Nyquist

Analyze Menu

The Analyze Menu contains tools for finding out about the characteristics of your audio, or labeling key feature.

Analyze: Nyquist

No special notes for Nyquist

Tools Menu

The Tools Menu contains customisable tools.

Tools: Apply Macro

Displays a menu with list of all your Macros. Selecting any of these Macros by clicking on it will cause that Macro to be applied to the current project.

Extra Menu

The Extra menu provides access to additional Commands that are not available in the normal default Audacity menus.

Extra: Transport

Extra commands related to play and record

Extra: Tools

Extra commands to select the tool, for example time-shift, envelopes, multi-tool.

Extra: Mixer

Extra commands related to volume

Extra: Mixer

Extra commands related to editing

Extra: Play-at-Speed

Extra commands related to play at speed

Extra: Seek

Extra commands related to seeking

Extra: Device

Extra commands related to selecting a device

Extra: Selection

Extra commands related to selecting.

Extra: Focus

Extra commands to set focus, usually focus on one track

Extra: Cursor

Extra commands to move the cursor

Extra: Track

Extra commands to operate on a track that has focus

Extra: Scriptables I

These commands were originally written for scripting Audacity, e.g via a Python script that uses mod-script-pipe. The commands though are also present in the menu, available from macros, and available from within Nyquist using (AUD-DO "command")

Extra: Scriptables II

Like Scriptables I, but these ones are less commonly used from the menu.

Help Menu

The Help Menu lets you find out more about the Audacity application and how to use it. It also includes some diagnostic tools.

Help: Diagnostics

A set of diagnostic tools

No Menu

These are additional commands that do not appear in any menu

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