Macros don’t seem to actually affect the files you apply them to.
After creating a macro with something simple like selecting all then adding a Compression effect, confirming that it works for an open project, when I click “Apply to Files…” then select one or more WAV files, it shows the contents as it brings each one up, then closes it.
Upon then opening that file, it still looks the same as without having applied the macro.
I recall selecting “edit file in place” the first time I did it, checking the box not to prompt again.
Is there something extra you need to do to actually write the output files?
When applying Macros to files you need to ensure that the last step in the Macro is an Export command. Audacity will then export a file of the same name but in folder called cleaned alongside the original file(s).
When batch processing files, you need to put one of the “Export” commands at the end of the list of commands in the Macro. When Audacity gets to that step, it will export the processed track, in the appropriate format, to a “cleaned” folder. (the folder is called “cleaned” for historical reasons).
This caused me to have a look at the Manual (I am the current main editor) and I made some changes to make the need for an export step much clearer. This will only show in the upcoming 2.3.1 Manual as I cannot edit the already released 2.3.0 Manual.
I agree that would be better, but better still would be an option to specify the export folder in the Export command. Currently this is only available (for more than one file) when using Nyquist-Macros or an external scripting language (via mod-script-pipe).
One wonders whether perhaps even a warning would be prudent when applying a macro to multiple files without either an Export command or something else that would create a tangle change - is there anything else you would do in a batch run of a macro that wouldn’t involve writing the result somewhere?
That would be ideal.