# Directories Preferences

### From Audacity Manual

  Click on any of the other Preferences sections in the above image to go directly to that Preferences page.

## Temporary files directory

- Location: Sets the location of Audacity's temporary directory. This is used whenever there is audio data that hasn't yet been saved as an Audacity project. Exit and restart Audacity for changes to the temporary directory to take effect. Make sure the temporary folder is on a fast (local) disk drive with plenty of free space. If you need to use a network drive, consider the "Audio cache" option below.

If your drive does not have sufficient space, you can reduce the space taken by temporary data by going to the Quality tab of Preferences and reducing the default sample format and sample rate. Reducing the sample rate will noticeably reduce higher frequencies, so is only recommended for speech data.

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