Huge file sizes

[HorseBudget]

I’ve seen discussion of this elsewhere e.g. Remove History - File size is huge - #4 by Trebor

Recent Audacity file sizes are huge, easily double those from a couple of years ago. Even a couple of seconds clipped from a recording are taking up 4GB+. I’ve discovered this is due to the “smart clips” setting and how to get around it when specifically pasting clips.

(I think having this obscure setting on by default, with no indication to a layperson that it exists at all or will cause massive explosions in file sizes, is a terrible design decision, but that isn’t the point here)

My question is, what else can we do to manage file size when a project doesn’t involve a lot of pasting clips? E.g. mine have doubled in size when my editing is basically cutting the file into halves, compressing audio, truncating silence, and pasting a short intro into each.

I’ve seen the suggestion of copying the entire edited file into a new project, with smart clips turned off, and saving it (and then, if space saving is the point, deleting the original project).

Is there a setting similar to the “smart clips” one that will cover this? For example, I assume when I divide files into two separate projects, the original file is keeping the “cut” half of the project and that’s why the file is huge.

[DVDdoug]

I rarely save project files. I’m usually doing simple editing and I just export as MP3 or WAV, etc. (I also have GoldWave which doesn’t even support projects.)

…I don’t expect Audacity to change their approach/philosophy but I believe most DAWs don’t include audio in their project files which means they can be small. But that means you have to be careful what you do with your audio resource files.