Audacity Label Import vs a Faster Way to Split Tracks

Audacity can split one long recording into many files, and plenty of people learned it that way: add a label at each track, then export one file per label. It works well. For the narrow job of turning an album, a mix or a recorded set into tagged tracks, though, there is a shorter route, and it helps to know when each one is the right tool.

Below we walk through both, step by step, then compare them side by side. Audacity's menu names here are from its current 3.x manual; older versions name a couple of things differently, and we note where.

The Audacity way

Labels in, files out.

1. 01

   Open the recording

   Open or import the long file so it sits on one track in the project.

2. 02

   Add a label at each track

   Play the audio and use Edit > Labels > Add Label at Playback Position (Ctrl+M, or ⌘+. on a Mac) where each song starts, then type its name. For recordings with gaps, Analyze > Label Sounds can place labels around the sounds for you.

3. 03

   Or import a label file

   If you already have a tracklist, File > Import > Labels reads a plain text file with one label per line: start time, end time and label text, separated by tabs, with times in seconds.

4. 04

   Export multiple files

   In current versions, choose File > Export Audio and select "Multiple Files", split files based on Labels, and name files using the label name. Versions before 3.4 had this as File > Export > Export Multiple, with the same choices.

5. 05

   Tag the files

   The export dialog lets you edit metadata such as artist and album. Audacity's Metadata Editor has no field for cover art, so artwork is usually added afterwards with a separate tag editor.

The label file is where a tracklist from a video description or a liner note needs the most work. A list like 3:52 Harbor Lights has to become seconds, and each line needs its end time too. The first three tracks of an album look like this, with a tab between the columns:

0.000000	232.000000	Paper Lanterns
232.000000	461.000000	Harbor Lights
461.000000	688.000000	Slow Engine

That is 3:52 as 232 seconds, 7:41 as 461, and so on for every track. It's simple arithmetic, but on a 20-track mix it is easy to get one wrong, and a spreadsheet or a script is the usual way people do it.

The faster way

Paste the list as it is.

1. 01

   Upload the file

   Open the audio track splitter and choose an MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A/AAC, Ogg Vorbis or Opus file of up to 450 MB.

2. 02

   Mark the tracks

   Tick "Paste timestamps as text" and paste the tracklist with its MM:SS times, in whatever shape it came: times first or last, in brackets, numbered, bulleted or as ranges. No seconds, no end times, no tabs. Or press "Add track" as each song starts, or use "Find tracks automatically".

3. 03

   Add album info and cover

   Artist, album, year, genre and a cover image go on every track, with its own title and track number. If every line reads "Artist - Title", each track gets its own artist.

4. 04

   Split and download

   The file is uploaded over HTTPS and cut on our server with FFmpeg. Download one zip, or each track on its own. The zip also holds a .cue sheet for the original file.

Side by side

What each one is good at.

Choosing

Which one to reach for.

Use Audacity when the audio itself needs work: removing hiss from a tape transfer, fixing levels, trimming a cough out of the middle of a song, or editing several tracks together. Also when you can't upload the file, because it is over 450 MB, private, or you're offline. It's a capable editor, and splitting is one small part of what it does.

Use the splitter when you already have a tracklist with times, or the songs are separated by silence, and you want finished, tagged files with cover art in one pass. It also suits a phone, where there's no Audacity to install. For specific jobs there are presets: a DJ mix splitter, splitting by silence, equal parts for lectures and transcription, and a podcast chapter splitter.

The two also work together. Clean up a vinyl or tape recording in Audacity, export it as a single FLAC or WAV, then split and tag it with the splitter. If a long WAV is over the limit, exporting FLAC instead roughly halves the size without losing anything.

FAQ

Common questions.

Can Audacity import a YouTube-style tracklist directly?

Not as written. File > Import > Labels expects tab-separated start and end times in seconds, so a list like "3:52 Harbor Lights" has to be converted first. The splitter's paste box reads that format as it is.

Does the splitter work offline?

No. Files are uploaded over HTTPS and cut on our server with FFmpeg, then deleted once your downloads are ready. Your timestamps, album info and cover art are saved in your browser's storage between visits.

Can the splitter clean up or edit the audio?

Only fades of up to 5 seconds at each track's start and end, which require choosing an output format other than "Keep original". Noise reduction, EQ and other editing are Audacity's territory.

Which gives better quality?

For a straight split of an MP3, the splitter's "Keep original" copies the audio without re-encoding, so the tracks match the source exactly. Audacity decodes the audio for editing and encodes it again on export. From a lossless source, both can write lossless FLAC or WAV.