I have Windows 7 home premium with service pack 1 and I am using Audacity version 2.0.5
My question is:
If I attach a USB device with a .wav file, and then open and edit the .wav file directly from that USB device with Audacity and then export the edited file to another USB device such as a flash drive attached to the computer, are there any file remnants (including files that may have been deleted in the opening, editing and exporting process) of the .wav files that may be remaining on the personal computer hard drive or those USB drives after that process?
I am selecting read the files directly from the original (faster) when opening the original .wav file.
Assuming that everything works as it should (no crashes or other catastrophes) this is what will happen.
When you “Import” the WAV file, Audacity creates “alias” files that point to parts of the WAV file. These are stored in Audacity’s temp file and take up very little space because they just “point” to the audio data but do not actually contain any audio data.
When you edit the file Audacity copies the actual data from the WAV file as necessary (only the parts that you change). The modified data is saved in Audacity’s temp folder.
When you export a WAV file from Audacity, modified data (from the temp folder) and unmodified data from the original WAV file are pieced together to create the new WAV file.
When you close the project or close Audacity, the temp files are deleted (NOT moved to the recycle bin - they are deleted immediately).
Just to add that the Users<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity\audacity.cfg file will have a record of the fully qualified path of the imported file.
To avoid that, put Audacity on a USB stick too, and add a folder called “Portable Settings” (no quotes) in the folder where Audacity lives. The audacity.cfg file and the temporary data will then only be written to the “Portable Settings” folder on the stick.