Trimming first 16 seconds of 3500 files

Dear forum,

I like working with Audacity but there is still a lot that I cannot achieve.

I have 3500 wav files with an intro of 16 seconds that I need to cut. To do this manually, it’s almost impossible.
I have been playing around with the macros but I couldn’t find out how to trim the first 16 seconds of every wav file I have.

Anyone that did this already with a macro ?
Are there any other possibilities in Audacity to batch trim the first 16seconds of a wav file ?

Thanks a lot
Cheers
Alain

I’m not sure if Macros will handle thousands of files in one go, though you should be OK if you split them into batches of a few hundred (start small and work up).

I’d expect something like this to work:

macro.png

The Manual says:

It is recommended not to process more than 500 files at a time.

Peter

Thanks alot, this did the trick.
Is there a more detailed guide available for the macro part ? I love this.

Have a great evening
Alain

There’s this: Macros - Audacity Manual
and then there’s the list of available commands: Scripting Reference - Audacity Manual

Its the scripting reference that I was actually looking for.
Thanks again for the expert help.

Cheers
Alain

Note that the current implementation of scripting is relatively new, and so is the documentation.

Since Audacity 2.4.2 was released a few small errors have been discovered in the docs, and a few things not working quite as expected. The next Audacity release includes fixes for those. If you have any problems or things don’t work quite as you expect, feel free to ask :wink: