does the available space shown on the audacity screen correlate directly to the open space remaining on the pc? If so, is there a way to move the recordings to a different drive - or external drive to free up space?
Yes, that is the case.
Audacity works best with onboard disks. My W10 laptop has a 256GB SSD and an onboard 1TB spinning metal disk, both are fine for Audacity projects.
I can use external USB disks (not FAT formatted) - but I would never choose to do so.
My modus operandi for “freeing up space” would be to:
a) record and edit with my project on an onboard disk
b) Once the project is finished, if I still need it then move that project to an external disk.
c) move it back to an onboard disk later if I need to work on it further.
Peter
See Peter above.
Audacity assumes it can do its most important, demanding, critical jobs on whatever drives it can see. Starting with external drives, the connections can send data back and forth seemingly perfectly, but can mess with the timing.
Nobody cares if your spreadsheet or printed document is a split-second late, but that’s a big deal if you’re trying to perform multi-track audio overdubbing.
Worse yet, External drive problems can be unstable. Developers have a thing they call “Moon Phase Errors.”
Cloud drives are an extreme example. Manufacturers try really hard to make those look like ordinary drives, but your actual, physical drive may not even be in your time zone.
Koz
Thank you for the clarification. I have 2 drives in my windows computer - moving projects from “c” drive which has limited space to “f” drive, with a terrabite free might be an option? If so, is it as simple as copy and pasting?
Another if I may. I’ve been able to work with audacity on Windows desktop computers, but thus far cannot get it to work on windows laptops. Am I missing something basic?
Thanks again
Any project files that you have on your C drive can just be dragged&dropped onto your F drive (or moved there with Windows Explorer).
In future when you save projects just save them directly on the F drive.
Any unsaved projects will still have their temporary files on the C drive until you save the project - until you Save the project to the F drive when Audacity will copy them over.
You can change the temporary files to be on the F drive (in Directories preferences) - but if you save an empty project to the F drive as soon as you open it and before you start working on it the temporary files on C will not be used,
I’ve always run Audacity on a number of laptops various Windows operating systems (now W10 and W11) and on a Macbook Pro (now on Monterey but various other macOS previously) and it’s always worked fine.
Peter
You’ve been most helpful. Thank you. As for the laptops the issue I seem to be having is that some portions of the settings bar seems to be missing.
I do not see the portion where you can change the recording device or speakers. That entire bar does not appear on either of my devices. What am I missing?
Thanks again
The first thing I would try is Tools > Reset Configuration
If that doesn’t sort it out then I would reset completely by purging the Audacity settings folder:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_and_updating_audacity_on_windows.html#purge
Peter
That got my attention. Where are d: and e:? I have had two drives in my Windows machines for centuries, but they were always c: and d:. Care should be taken not to violate what Windows thinks is “normal” and “natural.”
How did you get f:?
Koz
There is one possibility. If you disconnect and/or shut down your network and internet connection, does the f: drive vanish? Try to read or send something to f: while the internet is disconnected.
Koz
Thanks again for the feedback. Still experimenting with the laptop issue. I found the items that used to be on the toolbar and visible. In the latest editions of audacity they have moved these items. I found them - tried every combination but cannot get audacity to detect sound.
As for the F drive. My original PC had a second drive added when first purchased. I had both C and D drives at that time. When the PC crashed years later, and once repairs were finished, the C drive was reinstalled. However the D drive was replaced by a higher capacity drive. It wasn’t labeled as D, for some reason they named it F. I don’t know if that explanation makes any sense but that’s the history. Fortunately audacity works fine with that setup