Extract text from Audacity projects (AUP)
To convert AUP projects to another format, you need Audacity or other Audio software.
To convert other file formats to the "Audio Editor Project" file type, you need software like Audacity or a similar tool.
The .AUP file format is primarily a legacy audio project file created by older versions of Audacity, a widely used open-source audio editor. It functions as an XML document that saves the configuration, track layout, edits, and volume envelopes of an ongoing audio project. In rare instances, .AUP files also function as video project files for the AviUtl editor, ASIC miner firmware updates, or even digital radiography images for Agfa systems.
Users frequently try to convert .AUP files because they cannot be played in media players or shared easily online. The major disadvantage of the legacy Audacity format is that the .AUP file itself contains absolutely zero audio data. Instead, it acts as a roadmap, holding pointers to thousands of small, 1MB audio chunks stored in a separate, fragile _data folder. If you move, rename, or lose that folder, the project breaks permanently. This frustrating split-file architecture is highly prone to corruption and was finally abandoned by Audacity in version 3.0 in favor of the unified AUP3 format.
The best target formats for finished audio are MP3, WAV, or FLAC. Exporting to WAV or FLAC preserves lossless quality, while MP3 heavily compresses the audio for easy web sharing with minor quality loss. However, standard online audio converters will completely fail to process an .AUP file because there is no audio payload to convert - it is just text.
This file format is exceptionally difficult to convert externally because only the native Audacity software can interpret the XML schema, locate the external .au data chunks, and render the final track.
Convert.Guru analyzes your AUP file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted AUP3, AUP3-WAL, AUP3-SHM, AUP4, AUP4-SHM, MP3, WAV, M4A, PNG, EXE, MP4, XML and ZIP files.
If you want to convert AUP file to MP3, WAV, MP4, AUP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, WMA, M4A, AIFF, OPUS or ALAC, you can use Audacity or similar software from the "Audio Project Configuration" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MIDI, AAC, TTA, AU, WV, DTS, MID, FLAC, RA, MP3, PCM or WAV files to AUP, try Audacity or another comparable tool in the "Audio Project Configuration" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our AUP converter.