Audacity 4: the free audio editor finally stops eating your files

Audacity 4 dropped after a year of false starts and a logo redesign that the community collectively groaned at. The final icon is fine. The software, though, is the real story.

The big change is non-destructive editing. Old Audacity would permanently chop and move audio clips as you worked—you'd trim a clip and the original was gone. Version 4 keeps the source intact and stacks edits on top, so you can undo anything without hunting for backups. It also got a proper undo stack, a refreshed UI, and a new plugin architecture. The app still has the free, open-source soul it's always had; it just stopped being a pain in the ass to use.

Why this matters for us:
this is the tool half the telenovela podcasters, church announcers, and bodegas that do voicemail promos actually use—and now it won't chew up their recordings when they fumble a cut.