From The Science Media Network

Three important notes for not losing work:

1. When starting a new project always save your blank project first, before you start working. (Otherwise the auto-recovery fails.)
2. Always make a 'surrounding folder' in which you save a particular project. Then when moving your project move the 'surrounding folder'. Never just move the '.aup' file.
3. If Audacity crashes unexpectedly, read the 'auto recovery' section below. You may be able to recover your work.

1 Crash Recovery

Like with many other software Audacity can occassionally crash. Fortunately there is a recovery option that allows you to recover unsaved work after crashes. When Audacity crashes first make sure that Audacity really has crashed and you cannot see any open Audacity windows. Then re-open audacity. You may see the following error message (we will show you later how to remove this message). Make sure Audacity is not running then select 'Yes'.

A crash recovery screen will now appear with Audacity giving you the option to recover you project. Select recover projects and this will load the projects you were using before the crash.

Once the project is back running to save your work.

2 Crash recovery: Removing the "lock file"

If Audacity crashed you might keep seeing the message below every time Audacity starts. Here is how to fix this.

If the "error locking temporary folder" keeps re-appearing you need to remove a particular file called a "lock file". To do this enter "Podcast course" > "Audacity Applications", and then the "Temporary" folder. Go to "Audacity_temp". You should see a file called "audacity-lock-username". Delete this file, either using "Backspace/Delete" or dragging the file into the "Trash".

The "Audacity_temp" folder should now be empty and next time you start audacity the error message will not appear.