Portable Settings

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/central-location-to-save-plugins-from-audacity-updates/43075/13

Hi. I’m using version 2.1.1 and running it on Windows 8. I’ve searched but have not found enough info on my question. It says in the manual that I can make a “Portable Settings” folder inside audacity executable. How do I do this? Where is the audacity excutable file? Is it on my computer?

2

If you have a question or a problem, please post in the board for your operating system rather than in Feedback and Reviews. I moved the topic for you.

No, it says “in the same directory as the Audacity executable”. The Audacity executable for Windows is the “audacity.exe” file in the folder where you installed Audacity (if you used the EXE installer) or in the folder where you extracted Audacity to (if you used the ZIP file).

I will see if that text in the Manual can be made a little more user friendly, but some of our users are very experienced, so excessive explanation would annoy and delay them.


Gale

3

Is there a beginner’s forum for new audacity users somewhere on the internet? I need a step by step, like you have for so many other items in the user manual. I don’t know how to find the directory where audacity.exe is. So I really can’t get portable settings to function for me. I travel a lot and need to carry audacity on a USB stick. Every day when I set up it’s going through the same stuff to get it right. The portable settings feature sounds great in theory. But people have to know how to set it up and use it just like anything else.

Thanks

4

If you know where you installed or extracted Audacity to, it’s in that folder. If you used the installer file “audacity-win-2.1.1.exe” to install Audacity, and did not change the installer settings, then it’s in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity” if you have 64-bit Windows, or in “C:\Program Files\Audacity” if you have 32-bit Windows.


Gale

5

Thanks for going out of your way on this. I found the Audacity folder, using your instructions. I made a “Portable Settings” folder there. Then I copied the Audacity folder to an external. I suppose that won’t work? It either saves the settings when I first install or when I close the open program. Which one? Should I restart audacity? I always use the installer.

6

As it says on http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/preferences.html#portable

The “Portable Settings” folder becomes active after restarting Audacity.

Probably what you want to do is restart Audacity from your installation folder now, change the settings as you want them, exit Audacity (not all the settings get pushed to audacity.cfg until exit), then recopy the Portable Settings folder only to your USB stick. Given the Portable Settings folder on the stick is empty, the new files and folders you are copying across should be merged in without any questions.


Gale

7

OK. I’m getting it now. How can I set it so that it begins where I left off - with my last project? I don’t see a setting for that.

8

Generally, saved projects reopen with the same visible contents as when you closed them, but not if you save the project, do something which is not in the Undo/Redo mechanism, such as move the selection, and then close the project.

You can’t have Audacity auto-open the saved project it had open when you exited. That is a feature request.

If that does not help, please describe the problem in greater detail, and if it’s not about Portable Settings, please start a new topic for it.


Gale