Navigating Effects without using a mouse

Accessing effects with shortcuts or scripting
  Shortcuts can be added, or changed, in Keyboard Preferences to items in the Generate, Effect or Analyze menus, including plug-ins that you added yourself. The shortcut activates the effect if the effect has no dialog, or opens the effect dialog.  Repeat Last Effect (or  on Mac) can be used to repeat the last used effect at its last used settings. If you obtain a noise profile with Noise Reduction and then use "Repeat Last Effect", noise will be reduced at the current settings rather than obtaining a new noise profile.  Scripting tools: The following applications allow you to write a script that can execute a single or multiple Audacity commands in response to any key press or other trigger such as a system event. Windows
 * AutoHotKey (open source)
 * PowerPro (freeware)
 * Robotask (paid for)

OS X 
 * Automator (built into OS X)
 * Apple UI Scripting: Audacity does not directly support AppleScript but you can use UI scripting instead. This must be enabled in the Accessibility section of your Mac's System Preferences (in OS X Mavericks, you have to go to the Accessibility section of the Security & Privacy Preferences then drag Audacity from /Applications into the applications list in Accessibility). See this Forum topic for more help: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=163988#p163988.
 * Keyboard Maestro (paid for)
 * QuickKeys (paid for)

Other keyboard methods

 * On Windows and Linux, pressing then  opens the Effect menu and takes you to the top of the list without having to use a mouse
 * On Linux you may have to hold down.


 * You can scroll up and down the menu one item at a time with the up and down arrow keys. If you are already at the top of the menu, the up arrow will skip to the bottom item of the menu.
 * On Linux, effects underneath the divider are grouped as "Plugins 1 - 15", "Plugins 16 - 30" and so on. Use to move into the list of plug-ins in the group.


 * Press on the keyboard to open the highlighted effect.


 * Once in the Effect, you can use to navigate forwards through the text boxes, sliders and buttons. Hold  while pressing  to skip backwards. You can use the arrow keys,, .  or  to control a slider.
 * On Linux you must click in a box or slider before you can navigate with the keyboard.
 * On Mac, and  do not work with sliders.


 * Once you have used an effect, you can use "Repeat Last Effect" at the top of the menu to repeat that effect with those last used parameters. This also has a shortcut (or  on a Mac). You can change this shortcut to something else in the Keyboard Preferences.

Faster navigation

 * On Windows, at any stage when the menu is open you can navigate to the next effect starting with a particular letter by typing that letter. For example, from the top of the menu:
 * press H then H to reach "High Pass Filter" (underneath the divider, because the effect is in Audacity's Plug-Ins folder)
 * press C then C to reach "Change Speed".


 * On Linux, seeking effects by letter does not work but you can use or  instead (which do not work on Windows) to skip items, followed by up or down arrow.


 * On Mac OS X, hold and press  then type the first few letters of the root menu item, then type the first few letters of the item required in that menu.
 * Tabbing between buttons in dialogs is off by default. Tabbing can be enabled by opening the System Keyboard Preferences, choose the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab, then under "Full Keyboard Access", choose the radio button "All controls".