Windows Install

Have a Lenovo notebook. Commenced the install to find that there is a Windows C: with 886GB/818GB Free… Lenovo D: 24.9GB/23GB Free. Assuming that c: is only for OS but not sure.

Additionally, looking to use Audacity for a 200 album task… What are my options if I also want files for Apple devices. Guidance sought.

By default, Audacity will install to your C-drive. (I’m pretty sure that’s a Windows default, not determined by the Audacity developers.)

Your D-drive is a drive partition (a laptop only has one physical drive built-in) and the D-drive is most-likely used for recovery in case you have to restore your computer to its as-new state.

You can also save your audio files on the C drive. Be careful about moving Audacity project files because there’s more than one file and things can get messed-up. (It’s a good idea to export as WAV files, whether or not you save-as an Audacity project.)

Drive space shouldn’t be problem. A “CD quality” WAV file (16-bit/44.1kHz/stereo) is about 10MB per minute, so a typical CD is around 500MB (half a GB). Audacity project files are saved-as 32-bit floating-point so they are twice as big.

What are my options if I also want files for Apple devices. Guidance sought.

Apple devices can play WAV, MP3, AAC, etc. iTunes are AAC and this sort-of the “Apple Standard”. I think you have to install the optional Audacity FFmpeg library in order to export to AAC… High quality MP3 & AAC files are about 1/5the the size of a CD-quality WAV. If you want to go lossless, Apple devices support ALAC (lossless compression). ALAC (and FLAC) will give you files files about 60% of the uncompressed size. And, “tags” (embedded artist/title/album/etc., information) are better supported in ALAC (and FLAC), compared to WAV.

Note that MP3 and AAC are lossy formats. That’s OK if you want to use them, because the quality can be very good and it can sound as good as the lossless original. But, do all of your editing in a non-lossy format and compress ONCE as the final step.