Hi,
When i use audacity and am clicking around edits, audacity constantly ends up marking a selection / loop section . I have uploaded a video of this as i am not able to explain this correctly . If you look at the video where i am playing a file and when i stop it creates a selection . My question is how can i stop audacity from creating this selection feature when i am editing. Is there a switch i can toggle and stop it from selecting sections?.
Thank you for your time.
Don’t click on the timeline. Click on the waveform.
Thank you Trebor,
The thing is I am an AE and I am used to the Cubase workflow at work. At home I have audacity installed on my laptop and sometimes when I do some edits, I am struggling :(. I changed all the shortcut keys / etc to my personalization and gotten really comfortable with this software, except for this feature, where I am getting stuck. I wanted to know if there is a preference setting where I can switch this feature off. I am unable to rewire my brain because of I am constantly using Cubase at work.
Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Best wishes.
ChatGPT tells me the option to disable Quick-Play was removed in version 3.1.
OMG. That’s a bummer. 
Anyways, I would like to thank you very much for your help you have rendered on this matter. You have a great day.
Best wishes.
May I ask how you are interacting with Audacity in the video?
For me this neither creates a selection nor affects loop:
EDIT: Release Audacity 3.0.5 · audacity/audacity has the Quick-Play setting available.
Hello Qubodup,
I am sorry for not checking in on this thread after my last message.
Yes as i am doing edits, i usually click on the time line to hear if the edits are right. and when i click spacebar to stop this happens . I have another video uploaded which is a little longer and hopefully you should be able to recreate this issue i am facing.
That only deselects selection / loop points. it does not stop the select behaviour.
I’m puzzled, this does not happen to me.
At this point, I would quit Audacity, create a zip or copy of the %APPDATA%\audacity\ folder, then rename it (to audacity-2026-06-09), then start Audacity, which will create a new folder.
If the behavior now is what you want, I would quit Audacity, rename the current %APPDATA%\audacity\ to audacity-377emptystart, rename audacity-2026-06-09 back to audacity and then compare the two audacity.cfg files in these two folders using Little Differ or similar and try to find the one setting that makes the difference.
Then I would change it in the current audacity.cfg.
The Windows DOS command to compare two text files is FC \path\file1.ext \path\file2.ext
There are also web pages that can compare files for someone who is uncomfortable with DOS commands.
Hello Qubodup,
I installed the software via microsoft store and i dont think there is some error during install. The only thing i did with it is change shortcut keys so that it goes with my work flow. However I will try what you have suggested soon.
I have made another video and i hope you will be able to reproduce the issue i am having. This time i have added some text of what i am doing and if you do the same it should happen to you too.
Thanks.
Hello WreckS0,
Yes , I am a relic and i grew up on DOS. 
. Thank you for your input . That is helpful.
Best wishes.
Afraid not:
I tried it twice and narrated what I’m doing (might have to turn on audio).
@Trebor does it happen to you?
Well, hopefully messing with the config will help when you get to it. 
Only Audacity 2.4.2 on my computer at the moment.
OMG . I was so sure this was a bug and you would experience it too. 
I will do what you suggested with taking off the appdata files and get back to you.
Best regards .
Hello Qubodup
It worked. Thank you very much for that technique. I looked up the two cfg files and it showed me quite a few changes over a variety of areas. Most of them were in inconsequential areas, but i could not actually figure out the main issue. Anyways, i have decided to keep the new cfg setting/directory and just do the shortcuts again ( which is about 10 of them ). This is easier for me to do and move on.
Once again, thank you very much for all the help.
Cheers all.
Super glad to hear it! Thank you for coming back and reporting.
Just in case: if you like, you could send me the old cfg via direct message (I’m guessing it can be attached? or you could quote it in a code block?) and if it causes the same issue on my machine, I would try to pinpoint the config that is at fault and report back here and report it as a bug (if broken configs cause incorrect behavior, that’s a bug) or maybe we’ll find out it’s a feature ^^ You can use Online Text Replacement Tool no ads no cookies no subscriptions no bloat to remove usernames and such from the file. (But no worries if it’s too much of a hassle.)
