Audacity
Free audio recorder and editor. The same Audacity as on Windows, for podcasts, voice notes and tidying up recordings.
Our verdict
Audacity is the app for recording and cleaning up audio, and on Linux it is the same program with the same grey toolbars you may already know from Windows. Record a voice memo, cut out the coughs, drop the background hiss, export an MP3.
For podcasts, voiceovers, digitising old tapes and generally making a recording listenable, it does everything a home user needs. The noise reduction is genuinely useful and the export options cover every format you are likely to be asked for.
It does show its age. Edits change the audio directly rather than sitting on top of it, so undo is your safety net, and building a multi-track music arrangement is fiddlier here than in an app designed for it. For everything else it is the obvious choice.
What's good
- Identical to the Windows version, so nothing to relearn
- Records from a microphone and edits in the same window
- Noise reduction, trimming and level adjustment that cover most home jobs
- Free with no length limit or watermark
What to know first
- The interface is old fashioned and unhelpful to beginners
- Editing works on the file itself, so mistakes need undoing rather than switching off
- Multi-track music production is possible but awkward compared with purpose-built apps
- The Flathub build is community maintained rather than published by the Audacity team
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (GPL-3.0)
- How you install it
- App store (Flatpak), AppImage download, App store (Snap), .deb installer, Built-in app store
Windows apps it can replace
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