• python3 >= 3.8
• cmake >= 3.16
• A working C++ 17 compiler
• Graphviz (optional)

For Windows see below for important installer settings.

Please note that Xcode 14 support on macOS requires CMake 3.24.0 or later.

Audacity uses Conan 2 to manage dependencies. If conan is not already installed, Audacity will download and install it automatically.

However, if you want to install Conan manually, you can do so by following the instructions on the Conan website. Manual installation can be useful if you want to use Conan to manage dependencies for other projects or if you plan to have multiple builds of Audacity on the same machine.

On Windows, please use the prebuilt binaries. Ensure you select one of the options to add cmake to the system path.

On macOS, the easiest way to install CMake is brew install cmake.

On Linux, cmake is usually available from the system package manager. Alternatively, sudo pip3 install cmake can be used to install the latest version of CMake.

We build Audacity using Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 and 2022. In order to build Audacity Desktop development with C++ workload is required.

We build Audacity using XCode versions 12 and later. However, it is likely possible to build it with XCode 7.

We use GCC 9 and later, but any C++17 compliant compiler should work.

Here are the dependencies you need to install on various distribution families.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake git python3-pip
$ sudo pip3 install conan
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libasound2-dev libjack-jackd2-dev uuid-dev

$ sudo zypper refresh
$ sudo zypper install patterns-devel-C-C++-devel_C_C++ cmake git python3-pip \
                      gtk2-devel libjack-devel uuid-devel libSM-devel
$ sudo pip3 install conan

$ sudo dnf update
$ sudo dnf install gcc-c++ cmake git python3-pip perl-core \
                   gtk2-devel gtk3-devel alsa-lib-devel jack-audio-connection-kit-devel uuid-devel libSM-devel
$ sudo pip3 install conan

https://graphviz.org/download/

This is not necessary to build and run Audacity. It generates diagrams that aid understanding of the large scale structure of Audacity's source code.

If you install Graphviz, then an image file modules.dot.svg is generated in the build directory as a by-product of configuration. It shows the dependencies among the Audacity executable, its optional extension modules, its shared libraries, and third-party libraries.

You will also be able to change to the scripts directory and run ./graph.pl to generate a diagram of dependencies among source code files within the executable.

1. Ensure the Python installer option Add Python 3.x to PATH is checked. Go to Windows Settings "Add or Remove Programs" and check the Add Python to environment variables in Python settings if Python is not in PATH.

2. Clone Audacity from the Audacity GitHub project.

   For example, in the git-bash run:

   $ git clone https://github.com/audacity/audacity/
   

3. Open CMake GUI.

   Set the Where is the source code to the location where Audacity was cloned.

   Set Where to build the binaries to the location you want to place your build in. It is preferred that this location is not within the directory with the source code.

4. Press Configure. You can choose which version of Visual Studio to use and the platform to build for in the pop-up. We support x64 and Win32 platforms. The x64 platform is a default option. Press Finish to start the configuration process.

5. After successful configuration, you will see Configuring done in the last line of the log. Press Generate to generate the Visual Studio project.

6. After you see "Generating done", press Open Project to open the project in Visual Studio.

7. Select "Build -> Build Solution".

8. You can now run and debug Audacity!

Generally, steps 1-5 are only needed the first-time you configure. Then, after you've generated the solution, you can open it in Visual Studio next time. If the project configuration has changed, the IDE will invoke CMake internally.

To enable ASIO support, please select audacity_has_asio_support=On in CMake after the initial configuration and then run select Configure again as described above. ASIO is only supported on Windows and only for 64-bit builds.

1. Clone Audacity from the Audacity GitHub project.

   $ git clone https://github.com/audacity/audacity/
   

2. Configure Audacity using CMake:

   $ mkdir build && cd build
   $ cmake -GXcode ../audacity
   

3. Open Audacity XCode project:

   $ open Audacity.xcodeproj
   

   and build Audacity using the IDE.

Steps 1 and 2 are only required for first-time builds.

Alternatively, you can use CLion. If you chose to do so, open the directory where you have cloned Audacity using CLion and you are good to go.

Before Audacity 3.2 only x86_64 builds and XCode "legacy" build system were supported. In order to build older version please use:

   $ mkdir build && cd build
   $ cmake -GXcode -T buildsystem=1 ../audacity

to configure Audacity.

1. Clone Audacity from the Audacity GitHub project.

   $ git clone https://github.com/audacity/audacity/
   

2. Configure Audacity using CMake:

   $ mkdir build && cd build
   $ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" ../audacity
   

   By default, Debug build will be configured. To change that, pass -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release to CMake.

3. Build Audacity:

   $ make -j`nproc`
   

4. Testing the build: Adding a "Portable Settings" folder allows Audacity to ignore the settings of any existing Audacity installation.

   $ cd Debug/bin
   $ mkdir "Portable Settings"
   $ ./audacity
   

5. Installing Audacity

   $ cd <build directory>
   $ sudo make install
   

You can use cmake -LH to get a list of the options available (or use CMake GUI or ccmake). The list will include documentation about each option.

On Linux it is possible to build Audacity using (almost) only the libraries provided by the package manager. Please, see the list of required libraries here.

$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" \
        -Daudacity_use_ffmpeg=loaded \
        -Daudacity_lib_preference=system \
        -Daudacity_obey_system_dependencies=On \
         ../audacity

There are a few cases when the local library build is preferred:

1. wxWidgets: While Audacity on Linux uses vanilla version of wxWidgets, we require that version 3.1.3 is used. This version is not available in most of the distributions.
2. portaudio-v19: Audacity currently uses some private APIs, so using system portaudio is not yet possible.
3. vamp-host-sdk: Development packages are not available in Ubuntu 20.04.
4. libnyquist & portmixer: Libraries are not available in Ubuntu 20.04.
5. sqlite3 & libsmbs: Libraries are very outdated in Ubuntu 20.04.

It is not advised to mix system and local libraries, except for the list above. ZLib is a very common dependency; it is possible to mix system and local libraries in one build. However, we advise against doing so.

There is a Dockerfile that can be used as an example of how to build Audacity using system libraries:

$ docker build -t audacity_linux_env .\linux\build-environment\
$ docker run --rm -v ${pwd}:/audacity/audacity/ -v ${pwd}/../build/linux-system:/audacity/build -it audacity_linux_env

To find system packages, we rely on pkg-config. There are several packages that have broken *.pc or do not use pkg-config at all. For the docker image - we handle this issue by installing the correct pc files.

Conan can be disabled completely using -Daudacity_conan_enabled=Off during the configuration. This option implies -Daudacity_obey_system_dependencies=On and disables local for packages that are managed with Conan.

It is possible to force Conan to build all the dependencies from the source code without using the pre-built binaries. To do so, please pass -Daudacity_conan_allow_prebuilt_binaries=Off to CMake during the configuration.

Additionally, passing -Daudacity_conan_force_build_dependencies=On will force Conan to rebuild all the packaged during every configuration. This can be usefull for the offline builds against the Conan download cache.

Audacity will try to detect the host and build profiles automatically. However, audacity_conan_host_profile and audacity_conan_build_profile CMakes options can be used to specify custom Conan profiles.

To fix errors, similar to the following:

ERROR: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='center.conan.io', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /v1/ping (Caused by SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: certificate has expired (_ssl.c:1131)

please, update your Conan version. Alternatively, the problem can be fixed using:

$ conan config install https://github.com/conan-io/conanclientcert.git

For errors like:

Unable to connect to conan-center=https://conan.bintray.com

please run

conan remote remove conan-center

For errors like:

[package] package_name/package_version: package has 'exports_sources' but sources not found

please run

conan remove package_name -c

In order to reduce the space used by Conan cache, please run:

$ conan cache clean "*"

Starting with version 3.2.0, Audacity target architecture on macOS can be selected by passing MACOS_ARCHITECTURE to the CMake during the configuration.

To build for Intel:

$ cmake -GXcode -DMACOS_ARCHITECTURE=x86_64 ../audacity

To build for AppleSilicon:

$ cmake -GXcode -DMACOS_ARCHITECTURE=arm64 ../audacity

The default build architecture is selected based on CMAKE_HOST_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR value.

When cross-compiling from Intel to AppleSilicon, or if Rosetta 2 is not installed on the AppleSilicon Mac, a native Audacity version build directory is required, as Audacity needs a working image-compiler.

For example, to build ARM64 version of Audacity on Intel Mac:

$ mkdir build.x64
$ cmake -GXcode -DMACOS_ARCHITECTURE=x86_64 -B build.x64 -S ../audacity
$ cmake --build build.x64 --config Release --target image-compiler
$ mkdir build.arm64
$ cmake -GXcode -DMACOS_ARCHITECTURE=arm64 -DIMAGE_COMPILER_EXECUTABLE=build.x64/utils/RelWithDebInfo/image-compiler -B build.arm64 -S ../audacity
$ cmake --build build.arm64 --config Release

This will place ARM64 version into build.arm64/Release/.

Set one of the following environment variables to the path to the VST3 SDK (i.e. the folder containing the pluginterfaces folder):

• VST3_SDK_DIR
• VST3SDK_PATH
• VST3SDK

or copy the VST3 SDK to vst3sdk directory in the Audacity source tree.

Pass -Daudacity_use_vst3sdk=system to CMake. CMake will build the SDK during the configuration.