How to Add Track Markers in Audacity

Last Updated: October 10, 2021

This wikiHow article teaches you how to add label markers to a track in Audacity. A label marker, also called a track marker, is a feature in audio editing apps used for adding notes or annotations at a specific location in a file. You can use label markers to store editing notes, transcribe voice, to name segments that you want to break into separate files, or for any other purpose. When you add a label marker to a track, Audacity creates a separate label track in the project in which the labels will be stored.

Steps

1
Open your project in Audacity. You can label virtually any audio track in Audacity.
- If you haven't installed Audacity yet, you can get it from https://www.audacityteam.org/download.
2
Click or select the location you want to mark. You have two options:
- To mark a single moment in the track, just click the mouse where you want to add a marker. This is called a point label.
- To label a longer segment, use the mouse to highlight that region. This is called a region label.
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3
Press Ctrl+B (PC) or ⌘ Cmd+B (Mac) to add the label marker. This inserts a label track into the project and places a marker at the selected location.
- Alternatively, you can click the Edit menu, select Labels, and choose Add Label at Selection.
- If you want to add labels quickly during playback, press Ctrl + M (PC) or Cmd + M (Mac) to add a label at the current playback position. This is especially handy when making transcription notes.
4
Type a name or any other information you want in your label. The marker's label should not exceed 260 characters to avoid performance issues in the editor.^{[1]
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5
Press ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return. This saves the text to the label track.
- You can edit a label at any time by right-clicking it and selecting Edit label.
- To remove a label, right-click it and select Delete label.

Community Q&A

Question

When moving clips around, how do I keep the labels attached to the clips?

Community Answer

Once you have your tracks lined up for timing, go to Tracks > Sync-Lock Tracks (on/off). A clock icon appears on all the tracks and they are now synced to each other.