The new analyzer tool analyses and labels sounds and silences to help you work more efficiently.
There are a couple more minor changes, like an improved noise gate effect, command shortcuts, and a new analyzer. aup3 format might take a little longer to leave/save projects because it’s working harder, but it’s far better in the long run. To give a poor analogy, it’s like not washing the dishes after you eat each time it’s faster and easier at the time, but soon you’re left with a pile of dishes to clear up before you can eat again. The downside is that while the old way of saving projects was more convoluted, it was faster because it had less work to do. What this means for users is that you should be able to work faster because your machine is dealing with fewer files at one time. Audacity makes use of the open-source SQLite3 database for file storage. aup3 files that contain all of the project data. The system of saving/piling many small files caused problems and often confused and irritated users.
In short, the data files were not contained within the project file (.aup). One of the persistent complaints about Audacity was that it had a somewhat convoluted way of saving projects. There aren’t many changes in this latest update, it’s mostly one huge change, and it comes in the shape of a new file format. See also: Best Free DAW (Digital Audio Workstations)