Export Formats supported by Audacity

Contents

 * 1) Uncompressed format types
 * 2) Compressed format types
 * 3) External program
 * 4) FFmpeg format types (mostly compressed)
 * 5) Custom FFmpeg Export
 * 6) File size and channel comparisons by export format
 * 7) Exporting to formats not listed in the Export Audio Dialog

Uncompressed format types
The following are all uncompressed audio formats in which every sample of sound is represented by a binary number. The most common uncompressed formats are WAV and AIFF.

There is no loss of quality compared to the original audio when playing uncompressed formats, except for some possible loss of low frequencies in the 4-bit (A)DPCM formats. Those 4-bit formats and the lossless 8-bit U-Law/A-Law formats save file size by reducing their bit depth, in a similar way that any of the uncompressed formats can be made proportionately smaller by reducing their sample rate (and thus reducing the high frequencies they can contain).


 * Other uncompressed files: includes all the uncompressed audio formats that Audacity can export, including 4-bit (A)DPCM, 8-bit U-Law/A-Law, 24-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit options. This menu item defaults to WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM on Windows and Linux and to AIFF (Apple/SGI) signed 16-bit PCM on Mac.
 *  AIFF (Apple/SGI) signed 16-bit PCM  No options for this format: AIFF is a lossless format that can both be played on Mac and Windows computers, though it is far more likely to be selected by Mac users. AIFF 16-bit PCM is suitable whenever you want to burn your exported file to an audio CD.
 *  WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM  No options for this format: WAV is a lossless format that can both be played on Windows or Mac computers. WAV 16-bit PCM is eminently suitable whenever you want to burn your exported file to an audio CD.

16-bit WAV and AIFF formats produce large files and are best-suited for use on computers rather than portable players or devices.

Compressed format types
Size-compressed formats produce files that are usually significantly smaller than uncompressed formats, as seen in the table below. The file formats that are significantly smaller are always of lower quality than the original audio, but are well suited for use on portable devices where storage space is limited.
 * GSM 6.10 WAV (mobile) No options for this format: Produces a mono WAV file encoded with the compressed, lossy GSM 6.10 codec as used in mobile telephones.
 * MP3 Files: MP3 is a popular compressed, lossy format producing much smaller files than WAV or AIFF, at the expense of some loss of quality. You must download the optional LAME encoder to export to MP3.
 * OGG Vorbis Files: Ogg Vorbis is the compressed, lossy Vorbis codec in an OGG container. Vorbis offers higher quality than MP3 for the same file size, and is useful for good quality small-sized mono files, but fewer applications can play the OGG format.
 * FLAC Files: FLAC is a compressed but lossless format, giving much larger file sizes than MP3 and OGG but only about half the size of WAV.
 * MP2 Files: MP2 is a compressed, lossy format similar to MP3, producing slightly larger files than MP3 for the same quality.

External program

 * (external program): sends audio via the command-line to any executable binary application either for processing or for encoding as a file. This is a method to export using an alternative compressed or uncompressed encoder or to a format not otherwise supported by Audacity.

FFmpeg format types (mostly compressed)
The following four formats are small-sized compressed formats giving file sizes comparable to or smaller than MP3.


 * M4A (AAC) Files (FFmpeg): Advanced Audio Coding is a compressed, lossy format used in Apple applications, generally achieving slightly better quality than MP3 for the same file size. By default, the exported file will be given an "m4a" extension. Optional permitted extensions:  .mp4, .m4r (ringtone) and .3gp (mobile).
 * AC3 Files (FFmpeg): the common name used for the compressed, lossy format used in Dolby Digital.
 * AMR (narrow band) Files (FFmpeg): the Adaptive Multi-Rate codec is a patented compression scheme optimized for speech, but also used for mobile telephone ringtones. The wide band variant uses higher bandwidth for higher quality.
 * WMA (version 2) Files (FFmpeg): Windows Media Audio v2 is a compressed, lossy format developed by Microsoft. Optional permitted extensions: .asf or .wmv.

Custom FFmpeg Export

 * Custom FFmpeg Export: Allows interface-based export of some additional compressed or uncompressed formats not listed above, and options for exporting formats containing alternative codecs (for example, WAV format containing MP3 or OGG format containing FLAC). Note: not all formats and codecs are compatible, and some exports might result in zero-byte or invalid files if FFmpeg does not support the combination chosen. The most flexible method to export to more formats using FFmpeg (or using any alternative encoder of your choice) is therefore to select (external program) as above and use the command-line encoder. See How can I export to formats not listed in the Export Audio Dialog? for more information.

File size and channel comparisons by export format
The following table gives typical achieved mono and stereo file sizes with different formats at default Audacity settings (that is, 44100 Hz sample rate and default bit rate or quality settings in the case of compressed formats). Where VBR compression is employed, the achieved size will vary depending on the content.

Some formats can be exported as multi-channel files containing more than two channels, if you enable this at "Use custom mix" in the Import / Export Preferences. The final column in the table shows the maximum number of channels Audacity can export for each format. Some formats may theoretically support more channels than Audacity can export.


 * {| class="prettytablerows" width="85%"


 * - style="background: #add8e6"
 * rowspan="2" valign="top"|Format
 * rowspan="2" valign="top"|Lossy
 * rowspan="2" valign="top"|Compression
 * colspan="2"|File size (MB per minute):
 * rowspan="2"|File size limit:
 * rowspan="2"|Channels
 * - style="background: #add8e6"
 * mono
 * stereo


 * WAV 16-bit PCM
 * No
 * None
 * 5.0 || 10.0
 * 4 GB (1)
 * 32
 * 32


 * AIFF 16-bit PCM
 * No
 * None
 * 5.0 || 10.0
 * 4 GB (1)
 * 32
 * 32


 * FLAC 16-bit
 * No
 * VBR
 * 2.5 || 5.0
 * 8
 * 8
 * 8


 * WMA v2
 * Yes
 * CBR
 * 1.3 || 1.3
 * 2
 * 2
 * 2


 * M4A (AAC)
 * Yes
 * VBR
 * - || 1.1
 * 32
 * 32
 * 32


 * AC3
 * Yes
 * CBR
 * 1.1 || 1.1
 * 7
 * 7
 * 7


 * MP2
 * Yes
 * CBR
 * 1.1 || 1.1
 * 2
 * 2
 * 2


 * MP3
 * Yes
 * CBR (optional VBR)
 * 1.0 (CBR) || 1.0 (CBR)
 * 2
 * 2
 * 2


 * Ogg Vorbis
 * Yes
 * VBR
 * 0.5 || 1.0
 * 32
 * 32
 * 32


 * GSM 6.10 WAV
 * Yes
 * CBR
 * 0.5 || -
 * 1
 * 1
 * 1


 * AMR (NB)
 * Yes
 * CBR
 * 0.1 || -
 * 1
 * 1
 * 1


 * }
 * {| width="82%"


 * valign="top"|(1)
 * The practical file size limit is 2 GB in many player applications due to their interpretation of the file size header. This also applies to 24-bit and 32-bit files where those bit depths are valid.
 * }
 * }

Exporting to formats not listed in the Export Audio Dialog
If you install the optional FFmpeg library you can use the (FFmpeg) choices in the Export Audio Dialog to export M4A (AAC), AC3, AMR (narrow band) and WMA. If you don't see a choice for one of those specific FFmpeg formats, then the build of FFmpeg you are linking to was not compiled to support encoding in that format.

The most flexible method to export to more formats is to choose (external program) in the Export Audio Dialog which opens the dialog for Audacity's command-line encoder. Point your command to an encoder that supports the format you want to write to, which could be FFmpeg or some other encoder (for example, an alternative AAC or MP3 encoder). On Windows, the recommended EXE installer of FFmpeg includes an ffmpeg.exe which you can use for this purpose. On Mac OS X, you can download a standalone "ffmpeg" binary if you search online. Please see formats supported by FFmpeg on the Audacity Wiki.