I am using Win7 and audacity 2.1.1
I could swear that in a previous version of audacity I could (from the file menu) open a folder full of audacity (AUP) files and set up a command to do a batch conversion and export them all as MP3s (or wavs) with only a few clicks. Any ideas where that feature has gone? Or if there is another way to do this. In this project alone I have over 100 files to convert and opening each and exporting each separately seems like a huge time suck! Thank you!
Audacity can batch convert audio files by using Chains (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/chains_for_batch_processing_and_effects_automation.html)
There are no batch operations for converting Audacity projects (and never have been).
OK read over this area you referred me to - so I want to apply chains I guess. Maybe I had the terminology wrong. There is a chain which normalizes and then exports to MP3. But when I try to select the directory my files are in - it says I cannot apply chains to AUP files. Is that correct? Is there another way around this? Or am I misunderstanding something?
As Steve already said, you cannot apply Chains to AUP files. Would you like us to add your “vote” for that feature request?
If you have a project with 100 tracks on top of each other, you can open that project, CTRL + A to select all, Effect > Normalize…, then File > Export Multiple… to export one MP3 for each track. You can’t apply the “MP3 Conversion” Chain to the project to do what you want because Chains have no Export Multiple command.
If you already had 100 separate WAV files, you could use that “MP3 Conversion” chain.
Gale
Thanks Gale. Sorry when I said “project”, I didn’t mean an audacity project, I was referring to a Storyline project. I don’t have an audacity “project” file with 100 tracks on top of each other (to be honest I don’t know how that works - I am self taught)
What happens is my audio talent records a separate file on the zoom microphone for each screen/layer/interaction piece in Storyline. The files they give to me are wav files. Then I open, edit, and clean up each one in audacity. When I save, it saves as an AUP file. Once all audio is approved - I then need to reopen each file separately, export back out as a MP3, and then close the file. (The want the files I place in Storyline to be MP3s.)
So to answer your question, yes please add my vote to a feature request. But also, as I mentioned I am self taught, I would love any advice you could provide if something about my process outlined above is less than optimal. 
I would not be surprised if I am overlooking a far better way to work!
OK, so you don’t need Chains to include Export Multiple, just for them to apply to multiple projects. I added your “vote” for that.
It’s fine to save an Audacity project if your editing can’t be done in one Audacity session, otherwise as soon as your edits are finished you should File > Export Audio… and choose WAV.
Don’t export as MP3 at that stage because MP3 is lossy - if you did have to re-edit you would lose quality by exporting as MP3 a second time for the finished file.
When your files are approved, apply the “MP3 Conversion” Chain to those exported WAV files. Make sure you export your WAV files to the same folder, because Apply Chain can only select files from one folder.
Gale
Please add my vote 
I have 148 AUP files that I need to batch convert to MP3.
Quality isn’t priority for me, just playability.
Thanks
It is highly unlikely that there will ever be a feature for batch converting AUP files. The current plan is that the next Audacity version after 2.4.2 will change the Audacity Project format, so there will no longer be AUP files.
My personal recommendation is to export projects as WAV files as soon as you have finished working on them, thus avoiding a backlog of dozens / hundreds of projects. WAV files can be easily converted to other formats with any number of format conversion applications.