Project Data file size optimization

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have 80 some odd episodes of a podcast I record every other week. I tend to do a lot of post work on these show and sometimes like to go back and grab elements from older episodes, so I make sure to save an archive of every show we do once the edit is final

I’m noticing my archives take up a TON of space on my storage drive. I have some episodes that are about an hour that, when I save the project file with its associated data and try to move that to the other drive, sometimes I am moving gigs worth of files over.

I’m not sure if it is possible or if this is even how it works, but are there files contained in the data of undo data or things i may not need when the project is done that can be erased. I want to maintain the whole file as is, with all its tracks as they were so I can grab and edit as needed? Saving a compressed file will get me an OGG audio and a .AUP file, but when I go to open it I have to wait for it to unpack.

When you save compressed is it getting rid of any potential “junk”, or is there anyway to basically perform a project clean up to lighten the size of things?

2

When you close the project, the audio data is trimmed to just the data needed for the project that you see, without any undo ability.

If you leave the project open, the data for undo and redo is still present. To discard all your undo history, click View > History, select the bottom item in the list, press the up arrow in “Levels to Discard” until you reach the highest number possible, then click “Discard”. You will not be able to Edit > Undo any of your previous actions in the project, but you will now have space to do more work on it.

Saving a compressed copy of a project is similar to exporting an OGG file except that it also contains most of the additional contents of a full project (labels, gain and pan settings, track positions on the Timeline, track order and metadata). No undo data is stored.


Gale