Effect

The Effect menu is where you apply processing — EQ, compression, reverb and so on — to the audio you have selected, and where you manage the plugins that provide those effects.

Below a separator, the menu lists the effect processors. That list is populated from your installed plugins, so its exact contents depend on what is installed on your machine. The individual effects are documented in the Effects section of this manual.

Plugin manager

Opens the Manage plugins dialog — a table of every plugin Audacity has found, with a switch to enable or disable each one. Disabled plugins stay installed but disappear from the menus. The command is the first item in each of the Generate, Effect, Analyze and Tools menus, and it is the same dialog from all four — one place to manage every kind of plugin.

The dialog has dropdown filters and a search field above the table, so you can narrow the list by plugin type, category or enabled status, or find a plugin by name. Which menu a plugin appears in is decided by what it is: generators land in Generate, processors in Effect, analyzers in Analyze and tools in Tools.

Add realtime effects

Shows the realtime effects panel, where you add effects that process a track live during playback without changing the recorded audio. Choosing the command again hides the panel. Shortcut: E.

Realtime effects are non-destructive — they run on the track’s output rather than rewriting its audio, so you can change or remove them at any time. See Realtime effects for how the panel works.

Repeat last effect

Applies the effect you most recently used to the current selection again, with the same settings, without reopening the effect’s window. Useful when the same treatment needs to go on several clips or tracks in a row. Shortcut: Ctrl+R.

Playback stops before the effect is applied. If you haven’t applied an effect yet in this session, there is nothing to repeat.

Last updated 3 September 2026