Audacity split track: separating clips, stereo channels and long files

People arrive at this looking for one of three things, and Audacity has a separate command for each.

Cutting one recording into separately movable pieces on the same track: that is Split, under the Edit menu.

Separating a stereo recording into left and right as independent tracks: that is Split Stereo Track, in the track's own dropdown menu.

Turning one long file into several exported files: that is Export Multiple, driven by labels. Each is described below.

Place the cursor where you want the break and use Edit, Clip Boundaries, Split, or Control and I. The audio is now two clips on the same track, and you can drag either one along the timeline independently.

Split New, Control and Alt and I, takes the selection out and puts it on a brand new track, leaving a gap behind. This is the quickest way to lift one speaker's answer onto its own track.

Split Delete removes the selection and leaves the space, unlike an ordinary delete which closes it.

To undo a split, select across the join and use Join, Control and J. Clips that are adjacent become one again.

Click the track name at the top left of the track panel to open its menu. Split Stereo Track gives you two mono tracks you can edit separately. Split Stereo to Mono does the same and sets both to centre, which is usually what you want for speech.

This is the fix for an interview recorded with one person on the left channel and one on the right, which some interfaces and recorders produce by default. Split them, and you can level and clean each voice independently.

It also fixes a recording where a mono microphone was captured into only one side, leaving the voice entirely in one ear. Split the track, delete the empty channel, and you have a usable mono recording.

Make Stereo Track, in the same menu, puts two mono tracks back together if you need to.

If you have recorded several items in one session, say twelve voiceover lines or a set of chapters, you do not need to split anything manually.

Place the cursor at the start of each section and press Control and B to add a label. Type a name for each one, because those names become the filenames.

Then File, Export, Export Multiple, and choose to split based on labels. Audacity writes one file per label in a single pass.

For a long recording with clear gaps, Analyze and Silence Finder or Label Sounds can place those labels automatically, which turns an hour of manual splitting into about two minutes.

Splitting is straightforward on one or two tracks. On a four-person conversation where everyone was recorded separately, keeping splits aligned across tracks becomes the work, and one accidental drag puts a voice out of sync for the rest of the episode.

If you are editing multi-person conversations regularly, use Split Delete rather than Delete so timing never shifts, and select across all tracks before cutting so every track is cut at the same point.

Sync-Lock Tracks, under the Tracks menu, enforces this. With it on, an edit on one track applies the same timing change to the others, which prevents the drift that ruins long edits.

Hilite keeps multi-person recordings aligned automatically and edits them through the transcript, so splits happen to every track at once. We make it, so weigh that accordingly. For one or two tracks Audacity is free and does this well.