Hello -
I have a project file that is 83.56 Gb in size. When I try to save it, it gives me an error telling me that there isn’t enough hardrive space to save it. Yet, I’ve got 188Gb available.
When I have eliminated tracks in the project file to reduce the size, I get the same response. I’ve tried saving it to my google drive as well, same response.
All of which makes me think it’s Audacity and not my drive space.
I’ve opened a smaller project file that is 58.25 GB in size and get the same response.
Now, when I try to open the larger file, I get the spinning wheel and Audacity is unresponsive.
I have been able to export edited MP3 files but not save the project file itself.
Thanks for sharing your insights on how to solve this problem!
Michele
The RBBOD or Rotating Beach Ball of Death as the video people call it.
You get that when the Mac is just out of options and gives up.
Every time you perform an edit or change, Audacity tries to save a copy of the whole show. That’s your UNDO. If you make a mistake and Edit > UNDO, Audacity doesn’t try to unscramble your last edit, it just plays back the last show—and it keeps doing that further back in time.
So you have multiple copies of the show floating around the machine and with a show that large, I can see trouble brewing. Do you have any other applications running and in the background?
What is the show and how long is it? I think you have designed your way out of most of the first-pass safety solutions. Perfect Quality WAV files can’t get any larger than 4GB.
Have you discovered one good reason why you can’t do surveillance in Audacity?
Hi Koz - thanks for your response.
I love the RBBOD acronym…LOL
Yes, I have a variety of other applications running in the background - mail, browsers, messages, etc. happening.
My project file is a selection of different audio files and client recordings. (I record custom audio files for my hypnotherapy clients to listen to as they drift off to sleep to help rewire their thinking).
In the past, I’ve had 6 months of clients in one project file all stacked up, with all but 2 muted then I export the new client file, save the project and close it until the next time I need to create a client recording.
What is “surveillance” in audacity?? I’ve never heard of that.
thanks for any suggestions on how to make the file smaller so I can actually save it.
I created a backup copy on my google drive but can’t open that one either.
Cheers,
M
You can export as WAV or FLAC (both lossless) and the file sizes will be “normal” Or, MP3 is probably OK for your final production.
Depending on what you’re doing, you may not need an AUP3 project at all.
He means don’t continuously record for hours and hours…
Audacity requires an NTFS or exFAT drive. I’m not sure if Google drive qualifies or not. It has something to do with how the AUP3 database is accessed. And in general, Audacity “wants” a local drive and the slower speed of remote virtual drives can be a problem.
After you’ve saved & closed your AUP3 project it’s “just a file” and you can back-up to “The Cloud” or a thumb drive, etc. Then you’ll need to move it back to an NTFS or exFAT drive before you re-open it.
Thanks Doug for chiming in. Super helpful as well.
I’m not actually continuously recording anything in audacity. I am only importing audio files from zoom sessions with clients and then mixing a portion of that audio file with binaural music tracks to create custom recordings for my clients to listen to daily.
I just happen to keep each of these 30minute or less audio files all in one project file for convenience.
I’ll try creating a new project file and see if it’ll let me do that and save it back down to my HD.
Many thanks!
M
You won’t be going to WAV with a file that big. Also, it appears this is a multi-track file.
Cool. So you’re not doing anything magic or wacky. Just a lot of sound.
???
I thought the original complaint was Audacity would not let you save a Project file.
I do have a question I missed in my post. How do you know how big the file is if it won’t save?
How much memory do you have?
If I had to SWAG this (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess), I’d say Audacity had it together enough to know that if you made one edit, you would not have enough hard drive space to save the work and that would be the end of the show.
I’ll also guess that once this happens, Audacity file management may become unstable.
Does it really say that there is not enough space available? Or does it rather say, the file is too big for the drive? This is a big difference.
Is your drive formatted as FAT32? Then, the maximum size of a single file is around 4 GB. And 85 GB clearly exceeds this limit.
Your drive should be formatted in either macOS format (macOS Extended, or APFS), or ExFAT, or NTFS (read-only, for saving you need additional software like Tuxera NTFS).
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” - remember that line from the film ‘Cool Hand Luke?’ If the cap fits, wear it. You wasted the original poster’s time because she didn’t understand. You wasted DVDdoug’s time having to explain what you meant. Seriously, stop talking in riddles man, it’s utterly annoying and helps nobody.
I think this illustrates the point about prevention being better than cure. I think you would have been better making a new project for every session. Sooner or later appending to one project is going to end up with you coming unstuck.
I’m guessing it’s not feeling very convenient right now.
In that case, maybe you could select and export MUCH smaller chunks of the project - ie where logical breaks in the audio make sense to you - and save them as FLAC. If you can’t save the project, your options are limited anyway. You will have to turn your machine off eventually.
If you use a meaningful system for naming and organising your sessions, it should be easy to find stuff in future.
I’ve used Audacity to digitise my own collection of hypnotherapy cassettes but nothing as far-reaching as what you have done.
I hope some of that helps to dig yourself out of a hole.
Mark B
I think Audacity is now unstable and you have no other choice. The poster has said he tried some of the solutions and also had trouble opening existing files.
Yes, smaller projects rather than a super large one. I would urge making sure Audacity is the only thing running while you’re doing production. We don’t know that one of your other applications isn’t causing the current problem.
What’s the FLAC filesize limit? My personal choice is WAV. It’s very common should you need to send a file somewhere else, and only limited by mono/stereo and the 4GB size limit. That’s 6 hours of simple stereo recording.
Don’t fall in love with MP3. MP3s make poor Edit Masters and are easily damaged.
Do you need to save the recordings you’ve already made? Or is each client file a one-off? The method you describe (muting the tracks to include in the export) could be used to export the voice tracks only (mute everything but one track). I assume the beats come from a file.
If the exported MP3 files are sufficient, or you’ve exported everything you need with the method above, then you can probably abandon the Audacity project file. If that is the case then delete the Audacity project and empty the trash.
In the future, start a new Audacity project for each client recording. Only keep projects around if there is a chance you might need to re-mix it.
