To cut this audio file down to exactly 10 seconds, use these following steps. Walk through deleting all but approximately 10 seconds of selected audio Use the Zoom commands so that you can make maximal use of your Audacity window to see as much detail as you need, or to make sure you see the entire file when necessary. View > Track Size > Fit to Width (or Ctrl + F) will zoom the waveform so it fits in the window. View > Zoom > Zoom Out (or Ctrl + 3) is the same as clicking the Zoom Out button.

View > Zoom > Zoom In (or Ctrl + 1) is the same as clicking the Zoom In button. There are also menu commands and keyboard shortcuts for zooming. Note that when you click the Zoom In button the cursor is centered on the screen. Keep clicking the Zoom In button until you see the detail you need. To zoom in to get a closer look at the waveform, first choose the Selection Tool, then click near the point you are interested in, then click the Zoom In button. The image above shows Edit Toolbar with the Zoom buttons highlighted. You do the same thing in Audacity: first zoom and select the range of audio you want to change, and then choose what you want to do with it. You might want to cut or copy the text, delete it, paste new text in its place, or change it to bold. When you are editing text you first select the text you want to change and then choose what you want to do with it. You edit audio waveforms in Audacity in much the same way as you would edit text in a word-processing document. Step 5: Create a 10-second clip from your audio

On Windows, dragging the file to the Audacity icon in the Taskbar will either switch the window to Audacity if it is running (from where you can drag the file in), or if Audacity is closed, give the option to launch Audacity with the file imported.

On Mac and Linux you can drag the file to the Audacity icon in the Dock or Taskbar respectively to import the file into Audacity.

On Windows and Mac you can also drag to Audacity's icon in a file manager application.

Specific dragging behavior according to platform:

dragging the audio file to the Audacity icon on the Desktop.

dragging the audio file into the Audacity window.

First launch Audacity, then import an audio file by selecting File > Import > Audio.Ī quicker method is to just drag and drop the file as in the following examples:

Audacity mp3