Customization

Audacity can be customized in a number of ways including adding to and changing the provided keyboard shortcuts and loading additional plugins

Customize Preferences

• Preferences are settings that let you change most of the default behaviors of Audacity.

Customize Keyboard Shortcuts

• You can use keyboard combinations to perform many actions in Audacity; for example pressing Ctrl + 1 on the keyboard zooms in a step. The combinations associated with different commands can be changed or added to on the Keyboard Preferences tab.

Customize Plugins

You can download and install plugins to add extra functionality to Audacity. Plugins can give you extra effects, or more audio generation and analysis capability.

Instructions for installing plugins can be found at Installing plugins on the Audacity Support site for plugin installation details for all three platforms.

• Nyquist: A number of Nyquist plugins are already included with Audacity. Nyquist is a dialect of LISP specially developed for audio processing. It can generate or process sound effects, or analyze audio content.
  • List of additional Nyquist plugins available for download

Nyquist plugins are text files, so it is relatively easy to modify them or even create your own Nyquist plugins in any text editor.

• Other plugin formats: Other plugin formats can be added:
  • LV2 effects
    • LADSPA effects - Note that LADSPA has been superseded by LV2, most if not all LADSPA plugins are ancient and not maintained
  • Vamp analysis plugins
  • VST effects
  • Audio Unit effects (for macOS).
  • Module Plugins (advanced - usually requires compiling Audacity).

Customize Themes

You can change the look and colors of Audacity using Themes.

Ultimate Customization

Anyone can download our source code. Changing the code and recompiling Audacity allows you to change any aspect of its behavior or turn on experimental or optional features.

See our guides to compiling Audacity for Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux on the Audacity Wiki. If you need help compiling, please ask on the Compiling Audacity board on our Audacity Forum.

If you are interested in working with the Audacity codebase please consider joining our Developer Community. Your code changes can then potentially be incorporated into Audacity for the benefit of all users.