# Control Toolbar

### From Audacity Manual

- The Control Toolbar has buttons for controlling playback and recording.
- These buttons can also be controlled with keyboard shortcuts.

## Transport buttons

### Pause

Temporarily pauses playing or recording without losing your place. Press Pause a second time to resume.

### Play

Standard-speed playback. If an area of track is selected, only that selection will be played. Otherwise, playback begins wherever the selection cursor is. To loop-play (play the track or selection over and over until you press Stop), hold down SHIFT while pressing Play. This causes the button image to change to loop-play: .

### Stop

Stops playing or recording immediately.

### Skip to Start

Move the cursor to the beginning of the project. This is useful if you want to play everything, or record a new track starting from the beginning.

### Skip to End

Move the cursor to the end of the project.

Holding down SHIFT whilst clicking Skip to Start extends a selection region from the cursor position or current selection area to the start of the project. Holding down SHIFT with Skip to End similarly extends a selection region to the end of the project.

### Record

Recording begins at either the current cursor location or at the beginning of the current selection. Pressing Record always creates a new track, but you can append-record (start recording at the end of the currently selected track(s)) by holding down SHIFT while pressing Record.

## Alternative button order

The default "ergonomic" order of buttons on the Control Toolbar can unchecked in Interface Preferences to this alternative order:

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