Audacity Macros chain effects into a reusable sequence for batch-processing multiple audio files

An Audacity Macro is a saved, ordered list of commands — effects, generators, analyzers, and export steps — that runs unattended on either the current project or a folder of files. Three use cases: (1) batch processing many files with the same treatment (e.g., noise-reduce then export as MP3); (2) applying a multi-step effect chain to a selection in one click; (3) storing effect presets with non-default parameter values. The batch mode (‘Apply Macro to: Files’) reads from one directory and writes results to a ‘macro-output’ folder. The documentation recommends a limit of 500 files per batch run. For conditional logic or cross-platform scripting, Macros hand off to Python via Audacity’s scripting interface. Macros cannot branch or loop — they are strictly sequential.

Examples

A macro for podcast cleanup: (1) Noise Reduction, (2) Compressor at -18 dB threshold, (3) Normalize to -1 dBFS, (4) Export as MP3 192kbps. Saved as ‘PodcastClean’, it can be applied to a whole folder of raw recordings in one operation.

Assessment

Create a two-step Macro in Audacity that normalizes audio to -1 dB and then exports as WAV. Run it on three files in a folder and confirm the macro-output folder contains the processed files.