I just used Audacity to record a phone interview of about 20 minutes. The file has disappeared and does not appear in History, although my test files do appear (one was about 8 MB, only 4 secs). I did start to playback the 20 minute file, and it was playing fine. I was adjusting the compression, etc., and somewhere in there is disappeared and isn’t even showing up in the history. Is there any chance at all I can retrieve it? It was an interview with a VIP in our organization, HELP!
If you haven’t closed Audacity yet, try Edit > UNDO.
If the interview comes back, immediately File > Export > Export as WAV: WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit. That’s the perfect quality protection backup if something nasty happens again. If you record any other important work, Export a WAV file right after you press stop.
Are you using network drives, internet storage or iCloud? Is your computer filling up? Any of those can cause Audacity to lose its mind during editing.
Desktop > Go (top bar) > Computer > Macintosh HD > File > Get INFO.
If you do a lot of production on this machine, you may have run out of room. Audio (and Video) take a lot of room. While editing, some tasks make Audacity save The Whole Show as UNDO, and it can do that multiple times. It uses up memory/storage in a big hurry.
Koz