Hi. I've run into a problem. I have been happily working with Audacity for years. I have just upgraded my Mac with the latest operating system, only to discover that no version of Audacity is supported in it. I am perfectly open to using GarageBand - the problem is, I was in the middle of a project in Audacity when I upgraded, so I have lots of edited files saved in Audacity format. Audacity saves individual audio files in .wav format, but it saves them as multiple small fragments, which are not organised in any discernible order, so putting them all together manually would be a bit like doing a blank 2000-piece jigsaw. Does anyone know of a way to convert an Audacity project to GarageBand format, give that I do not have Audacity available to export it from?

Unfortunately as far as I know the only way to pull standard (.wav) files out of an Audacity project is to bounce them down in Audacity—there's apparently no way to put them together from the .au pieces. That leaves you with a short list of options.. - First off, in the discussion of a Terminal workaround (see below) they seem to imply that Audacity should open and run under Catalina, but you won't be able to record into it—if all you need to do is open it and bounce down tracks to .wav files, that may be worth a try before anything else (unless you've already tried it and it didn't work).. Failing that.. - Borrow a Mac with an older OS to render .wav files in Audacity to use in GB - If possible, create a partition and install Mojave on it so you can open Audacity and export proper .wav files - Try the Terminal workaround described on the Audacity Forum - Try Audacity 2.4 Alpha, a pre-release version that is supposed to include Catalina compatibility (though it's not clear if that's in place yet) Re the last two options—be VERY cautious with Terminal workarounds, and be even more cautious with alpha (early pre-release) software, which is liable to be very unstable on your system. I DO NOT RECOMMEND either of these two options—I'm just letting you know that they exist. That said, if you're an experienced hand at macOS and want to try the Terminal trick (keeping in mind it reportedly does not work for everyone), or if you're willing to try out possibly unstable pre-release software, then here are links to the Audacity pages that reference those options (again, I'M NOT RECOMMENDING EITHER of these!).. https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=107162 https://www.audacityteam.org/macos-10-15-catalina-is-not-yet-supported-by-audacity/ https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewforum.php?f=68 https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/New_features_in_Audacity_2.4.0

Thanks very much for your reply. I have now managed to open the project in Audacity (this didn't seem to work when I first tried it) and, as you suggested, exported the tracks as .wav and succesfully dragged and dropped them into GarageBand. Now I just have to get used to the quirks of unfamiliar software... Thanks again!

You're welcome! I'd imagine if you had to do a lot more than just exporting audiofiles in Audacity you'd probably have run into problems, but I'm glad it worked well enough to get the files you needed. GarageBand will initially feel quite different then Audacity, but it is much closer in design to most other DAWs so it should serve as a good stepping stone. I'll attach a link (above) to one of our basic GB courses, in case that might come in handy..

Having averted disaster, it's also good to know that, tf I ever wanted to revisit any old Audacity projects, I have a relatively trouble-free way of transferring them to GarageBand (...although there is Catalina-supported edition of Audacity in the pipeline, due out next month - but perhaps I'll already be sold on GarageBand by then).