Recover Audacity Projects Without Audacity

Convert .aup, .aup3, or .aup4 projects to WAV using aup2wav.

What are AUP, AUP3, and AUP4?

Audacity projects store audio in two common formats: legacy .aup (XML + _data folder) and modern .aup3/.aup4 (SQLite database). If Audacity won’t open a project or you just want a WAV export, you can convert the project directly without Audacity.

Recommended tool: aup2wav

Download the tool from the aup2wav page and run it with Python 3.8+.

# Legacy .aup (requires the _data folder next to the .aup file)
python3 aup2wav.py /path/to/project.aup -o /path/to/output.wav

# Audacity 3+ (.aup3/.aup4)
python3 aup2wav.py /path/to/project.aup3 -o /path/to/output.wav

# Stems or multichannel
python3 aup2wav.py project.aup3 --stems --stems-dir ./stems
python3 aup2wav.py project.aup3 --multichannel -o multich.wav

Common pitfalls

  • Missing _data folder: legacy .aup files depend on a matching _data directory with the audio blocks.
  • Aliased sources: if the project used external audio files and they are missing, those parts will export as silence.
  • Large projects: export time scales with track count and length; use --stems for easier recovery.

Need the right Audacity downloads?

Check the compatibility guide to match Audacity with the right FFmpeg package.