Audacity 4.0 Lands With Dark Mode, Sample-Level Editing, New .aup4 Format

Audacity 4.0 is out. Muse Group pushed the free, open-source audio editor’s update live on September 3, 2026, and it’s the kind of overhaul that changes how the app looks and works at the same time. The release brings a dark mode, a one-click clip-splitting tool and editing you can push right down to the individual sample. If you’ve ever recorded a voiceover for a stream intro or cut down a podcast in Audacity, this is the version that finally catches the software up to tools you’d expect from paid software.

This is the biggest update since Version 3.0 caused a ruckus over five years ago, and users have been waiting to see how radically the software would change with this latest release. That’s a long wait for a tool this many streamers, podcasters and bedroom musicians rely on daily.

Long-time users are already picking through the changelog to see what got cut along with what got added:

Dark Mode, Accent Colors and a Qt-Based Rebuild

The headline change is visual. The biggest change most users will immediately notice is the new look, which finally gives Audacity a dark mode. Muse Group’s own announcement goes further, confirming the application also includes light and dark themes, customizable accent colours and an improved high-contrast mode.

Under the hood, Audacity swapped its old toolkit for Qt. The Qt port of Audacity is more than a superficial facelift, as the toolkit switch brings native HDPI scaling, light and dark mode support and is able to follow system accent colours in its UI. You can now drag toolbars and panels around and save your own layout, and users can create UI layouts to suit their needs and save them as Workspaces to switch back to, alongside the built-in Modern, Classic and Music layouts.

One-Click Clip Splitting and Sample-Level Zoom

The editing tools got a real workout too. There’s a new splitting tool for one-click clip cutting. It’s the kind of feature editors on Adobe Premiere or Logic Pro already take for granted, and it should feel familiar to anyone who uses other creative software, not just audio software, as everything from Adobe Premiere to Logic Pro includes a similar capability.

Zoom in far enough now and you’re editing individual samples rather than waveform chunks. You can now edit down to the sample level by zooming in far enough on a clip, which is a powerful ability when one of your clips is almost perfect but requires fine micro-adjustments. Every track also gets its own meter, so each track also has an accompanying meter now, so you can figure out which of your tracks is clipping the mix. Small addition, but it’s the sort of thing that saves you from exporting a clipped track and only noticing after upload.

Sync-Lock Is Gone, and Not Everyone Will Be Happy

Not every change is additive. One of the most controversial changes here is likely to be the removal of sync-lock, which ensured that multiple clips could be edited in tandem, though new keyboard shortcuts have been added to replicate that functionality. Muse Group’s own changelog confirms the same trade: the old tool modes are gone and their jobs are now handled contextually, with Sync-Lock has been removed outright.

Here at ShaneTheGamer we think that’s a reasonable swap if the shortcuts genuinely hold up, but anyone who leaned on sync-lock for multitrack podcast edits will want to test their old workflow before trusting it on a real project.

New .aup4 Project Format Is a One-Way Trip

Audacity 4.0 also switches project files over to a new format. Audacity 4.0 switches to a .aup4 project format that stores preview thumbnails and new clip and appearance data, and it converts Audacity 3.x .aup3 and older .aup files to the new format, a one way process as converted projects can’t be saved to older formats. Back up anything you’re not finished with before you open it in the new version.

Some Audacity 3 features didn’t make the jump yet. The project says most Audacity 3 workflows remain available, but some export and rendering features and audio effects are missing, though the team say it’s hopeful missing features can return in a future release. If you rely on a specific export preset or an older effect, check the missing-features list before updating your main editing machine.

Free Against Software That Costs Hundreds

What makes this release land harder than a typical point update is the price tag: nothing. Most of these editing changes will feel familiar to those who’ve used fully-featured DAWs like Ableton Live 12 or ProTools, and given that most of those programs cost hundreds of dollars or more, it’s great to see Muse bring similar tools to a free tool. That’s the whole pitch Audacity has run on since 2000, and this update is the first time in years the interface hasn’t felt like it was stuck a decade behind.

Audacity 4.0 is live now for Windows, macOS and Linux, with AppImage and Snap builds already up alongside the standard installers. If you’re mid-project on 3.7.x, that one-way .aup4 conversion is the one detail worth reading twice before you click update.