Getting help

Please see https://docs.ankiweb.net/getting-help.html

When problems occur

Please see https://docs.ankiweb.net/troubleshooting.html

Restoring an Automatic Backup (Recovering from Data Loss)

Sometimes your collection may become very damaged. For instance:

• You accidentally deleted a card type or hundreds of cards and didn't notice in time to undo it.
• Your collection has become corrupted.
• There was a syncing error and you accidentally overwrote a large number of reviews that you did on another device.
• ...or anything else that leaves you with lost data.

Anki automatically backs up your collection every time you close Anki or sync (AnkiMobile backs up after fixed time intervals and before syncs), and by default it stores 30 backups. For information on restoring an automatic backup, please visit the relevant page:

• Restore a backup made by Anki on your computer
• Restore a backup made by AnkiMobile
• Restore a backup made by AnkiDroid

Can I link cards together?

Anki supports links between cards of a note, but not between unrelated cards. Imagine you are studying Japanese and aiming to be able to both recognize and reproduce the Japanese. You may enter the word "ookii", which means "big", and tell Anki to generate two cards - ookii→big and big→ookii.

In the above situation Anki can space reviews of those two sibling cards out so that they don’t appear one after the other.

Some people want to extend this link between arbitrary cards. They want to be able to tell Anki "after showing me this card, show me that card", or "don’t show me that card until I know this card well enough". This might sound like a nice idea in theory, but in practice it is not practical.

For one, unlike the sibling card case above, you would have to define all the relations yourself. Entering new notes into Anki would become a complicated process, as you’d have to search through the rest of the deck and assign relationships between the old and new material.

Secondly, remember that Anki is using an algorithm to determine when the optimum time to show you material again is. Adding constraints to card display that cause cards to display earlier or later than they were supposed to will make the spaced repetition system less effective, leading to more work than necessary, or forgotten cards.

The most effective way to use Anki is to make each note you see independent from other notes. Instead of trying to join similar words together, you’ll be better off if you can determine the differences between them. Synonyms are rarely completely interchangeable - they tend to have nuances attached, and it’s not unusual for a sentence to become strange if one synonym is replaced with another.

Continuing with the Japanese example earlier, imagine you want to learn the word "dekai", which also roughly translates to "big", but is a more colloquial expression. If you still want to review in both directions, you might make the English prompt of this word "big (more casual)". The further you progress in your language studies though, the more of a burden it becomes to define the differences between similar words, which is why cards asking you to produce a particular word are best left to the early stage of your studies. With a strong base vocabulary, moving towards recognition-based study makes more sense, as we all have a much larger passive vocabulary than our active vocabulary.

As for ensuring that difficult material is introduced after easier material, a number of existing tools are available. New cards are by default introduced in the order they are added to the deck, so as long as the learning materials or sources of information you are using are adequately graded for your level, material should appear in order of easiness.

Can I reveal parts of a card one at a time?

Typical flashcards, both on paper and in Anki, have a front and a back: the prompt or question is shown on the front and the answer on the back. Sometimes people want to add more steps to the answer. For instance, you might want to show the word in a foreign language on the front, then show a definition when you press the button once, then show an example sentence when you press it again, and so on.

This is generally not a good idea. The more complicated you make your cards, the more difficult they become to remember (rule 4) and the less efficiently they can be scheduled. The difference between the amount of time it takes to learn and review a few complex cards and the amount of time it takes to learn a larger number of much simpler cards containing the same information can be stunning.

For this reason, Anki doesn't support having more than two sides per card. In our foreign-language words example, you might instead want to create multiple card types, so that you would be asked for each of the items on separate cards – one card could show you the word and ask for a definition, another could show the example sentence with the word missing and ask what word logically fits, and so on.

In some cases, you might want to include extra non-essential information on a card without showing it until you need it. For this situation, Anki offers hint fields.

Card template has a problem

Anki has recently become stricter about reporting mistakes in card templates. In the past, it would silently ignore some problems, but display templates in unexpected ways. This change has been made to make mistakes easier to notice.

If you have not edited your card templates yourself, it is likely you have downloaded a shared deck, where the original deck author made a mistake when creating the template.

You can correct mistakes on the template by opening the card templates screen:

• On the computer version, edit a problem card, and then click on the Cards... button
• On AnkiMobile, while viewing a problem card in the review screen, tap the cog/gear, then Card Template.

When you correct a mistake, it will update all cards of that type - you do not need to make the same change for every card that uses the template.

What needs changing will depend on the message you are getting.

Found '{{Field}}', but there is no field called 'Field'

This indicates your template includes the name of a field that doesn't exist. To fix the problem, locate the {{Field}} inside the card template, and remove it.

Missing }} in {{Field

This message is shown when {{ is found in the template without a matching }}. For example, if you have

{{Field

then this needs to be changed to

{{Field}}

Missing {{/Field}}

This means Anki found {{#Field}} or {{^Field}} in your card template, without a matching {{/Field}}. Removing {{#Field}} or {{^Field}} from the template will fix the error.

Found {{/One}}, but expected {{/Two}}

Conditional replacements need to be closed in the same order they are opened. For example, the following template is incorrect:

{{#One}}
  {{#Two}}
    {{Three}}
  {{/One}}
{{/Two}}

To fix the problem, the template should be changed like so:

{{#One}}
  {{#Two}}
    {{Three}}
  {{/Two}}
{{/One}}

Found {{/Field}}, but missing '{{#Field}}' or '{{^Field}}'

Closing tags must be matched by opening tags. For example, the following is invalid, because there is no {{#Two}} or {{^Two}} at the start:

  {{Field}}
{{/Two}}

It can be fixed by removing the closing tag:

{{Field}}

Cards are reversed / appearing twice

Anki can be configured to show cards in both a forward and reverse direction. If you want cards to only show from front->back, you can delete the reverse card.

If you have added cards to the Basic (and reversed) or Basic (optional reversed) notetypes, you can change the cards to the "Basic" card type by selecting them in the Browse screen, then using the Change Note Type menu item. Select your Basic note type, choosing to keep Card 1, and discard Card 2.

If you have modified the Basic card template to add an unwanted reverse direction, you can modify it back instead:

• Edit a card
• Click the 'Cards' button
• You will see one or more tabs at the top representing each card type that will be created. Locate the card type you don't want, click the Options button, and remove the unwanted card template.

Characters are cut off

If you find that parts of your characters are missing, the font you're using is probably not appropriate for the language you're studying. To fix this:

• While an affected card is shown, click Edit, then Cards.
• Click the Add Field button.
• Select Front or Back, depending on which side you want the field to be shown on.
• Choose a font that is intended for the language you're studying.
• After clicking OK, you should see the field appear a second time on your card, and this time it should appear correctly. If it doesn't, add the field again and try a different font.
• Remove any other {{field}} references on the left side, so that the field only appears once on your card.

If you're using Windows, you may need to install language support for the language you want to use in Windows first. After rebooting, any newly added fonts should become available to Anki.

Customizing MathJax

Anki's bundled MathJax support is loaded before your card content, so if you wish to customize MathJax, you will need to do so in a specific way.

For recent Anki versions, use something like this:

<script>
MathJax.config.tex['macros'] = {
    R: '{\\mathbb {R}}',
};
if (typeof is_already_run == 'undefined') {
  is_already_run = true
  MathJax.startup.getComponents();
}
</script>

For older Anki versions:

<script>
  MathJax.Hub.Config({
  ...
  });
  MathJax.Hub.Configured();
</script>

Notes:

• Please avoid changing the standard open/close tags (\( and \[), to something like $ and $$, as Anki has special logic for cloze deletions, which will not work if you change the delimiter.

Errors when recording

If you have problems recording audio in Anki, please make sure:

• a microphone is connected to the computer
• the microphone is set as the default recording device in your system's sound settings
• another program like Skype is not using the microphone - you may need to close the other microphone-using program. If that does not help, please try restarting your computer.

If you receive the message IOError: [Errno Unanticipated host error] -9999 on Windows 10, please make sure you have allowed Anki to use the microphone:

https://winaero.com/blog/disable-app-access-microphone-windows-10/

Extra characters appearing on cards

Sometimes users notice that text is appearing in front of or on their cards that they don't remember putting there. Usually it is just a couple of letters or nonsense. For instance, on the front side of your card you have written book, but when you review the card it appears as fybook.

This problem is caused by accidentally placing text in the card template. You can solve it as follows:

1. While reviewing with the computer version, locate one of the cards that has the problem, and edit it. (Alternatively, search for one in the browser.)
2. Click the Cards button.
3. Look in the Front Template box (or, if the text is appearing on the back of the card, the Back Template box). You should see the extra text in there somewhere. Being careful not to delete anything else, remove it.

After you close the Cards dialog, your cards should appear as normal again.

If you don't have access to the computer version, you can study such a card in AnkiMobile, then tap on Tools>More>Edit Card Template.

Multiple choice questions

Multiple choice questions are not the most effective way to study. The reason they are commonly used in an academic setting is because they are easy to mark, and they allow the person studying to demonstrate their ability to recognize the correct answer, even if they can’t produce it themselves.

When you need to pick from a selection of answers, it is easy to "cheat", as you can guess what the correct answer is if you know what the other displayed options are. When multiple choice tests are designed by humans, the test creator can create clever "distractors" that are similar to the correct answer, making it harder for you to guess. Computers are not so good at this.

If you are studying for a test and you have a sample test with a multiple choice questions, like the following:

Q: What animal has a really long neck?

A: 1. A monkey. 2. A giraffe. 3. A donkey. 4. A snail.

Then the recommended way to put that question into Anki is to drop the incorrect answers, turning it into a simple question/answer card instead:

Q: What animal has a really long neck?

A: A giraffe.

No cloze found on card

Single empty cards

When making clozes, each cloze number is turned into a separate card. For example, the following will create three cards:

{{c1::This}} is a {{c2::sample}} {{c3::sentence}}.

If you you later edit the text, and either remove or change a cloze number, the previously created card may become blank. For example:

{{c1::This}} is a {{c2::sample}}

and

{{c1::This}} is a {{c2::sample}} {{c1::sentence}}.

are both changes that would make card 3 blank. When you view card 3, you'll see a message indicating that the card is blank, and can be cleaned up with the Empty Cards function. You can access that function via the Tools menu of the computer version's main window, and use it to remove blank cards. Please check the reported empty cards first, and if in doubt, create a backup with the File>Export menu item before proceeding.

All cloze cards empty

If you accidentally modify your card template, it may prevent any cloze deletions from appearing. If that has happened, please edit one such problem card, and note down the name of the first field - it is usually called "Text". Then, please:

• Click on the Cards... button

• Replace the front text with

  {{cloze:Text}}
  

• Replace the back text with the same.

If your field was called something other than Text, replace Text with the name of the field.

Note types with strange names

After you've used Anki for a while and downloaded some shared decks, you may end up with some note types with names like Basic-908e4 or Cloze-37a28. These note types are created when you download a shared deck that uses a note type with the same name as one that's already in your collection. (If Anki didn't do this, then it might merge two different note types that happened to have the same name.)

Having these note types in your collection is normal and will not cause any problems, but if you would like to clean up, you can use the following procedure:

1. Compare the fields and card templates of each of the note types using the Fields... and Cards... buttons in the Manage Note Types dialog (Tools → Manage Note Types in the main window). If they're not the same, then you should just rename one to something more descriptive. If they are the same, then you can continue with these instructions to merge them.
2. Open the browser and select the note type that you want to get rid of in the left pane. (You can pick either one as long as you're consistent.)
3. Click in the right pane and choose Edit → Select All.
4. Choose Notes → Change Note Type and change all of the cards to the note type that you're keeping. (Note that this step will require a full sync to AnkiWeb the next time you sync, so if you have unsynced progress on other devices, you should get everything in sync first. Anki will give you a warning about this.)
5. Close the browser, return to the Manage Note Types dialog, and delete the old note type.
6. Repeat these steps for any other pairs of note types you'd like to combine.

Printing cards in your collection

Some people like to print the cards in their collection so that they can review them on paper or for other reasons. Before you do this, please keep in mind that Anki is most effective when you study only through the application. Studying a list of your cards will necessarily require you to study them at suboptimal intervals compared to the ones Anki gives you.

Printing in Anki is handled by the Basic Printing Support add-on. If you have trouble getting your browser to open, please follow the directions in the review "WORKS, but does not open the browser automatically", located on that page.

Removing duplicate note types

Sometimes you may end up with several note types of the same name. This usually happens due to importing multiple decks, although you can also create a note type with the same name as another one in the Manage Note Types dialog box.

While this is generally harmless, it can be somewhat annoying if you can't tell which cards belong to which note type, so you can fix it as follows:

1. First, confirm that all of the note types with duplicate names are really the same by going to the browser, clicking on each one in turn, and comparing the fields that are shown at the bottom of the window. (If you're not sure, you can also click the Cards button and make sure that the templates are the same as well.) If they're not the same, you should use the Manage Note Types dialog (mentioned in step 2) to rename one to something else instead.
2. In the main Anki window, choose Tools → Manage Note Types. Select one of the duplicate note types, click Rename, and give it a new name (you can change it back later if you wish).
3. Open the browser and click on one of the remaining note types with a duplicate name. Select all the cards, choose Edit → Change Note Type, and select the note type you just renamed for "New note type." Repeat this step as necessary.
4. Close the browser, go back to the Manage Note Types dialog box, and delete the now-unused note types. If you wish, you can change the one you renamed in step 2 back to its original name.

"Some updates were ignored because note type has changed"

When importing a shared deck that has previously been imported, Anki will only be able to update your existing cards if:

• the name, number and order of fields has not changed
• the name, number and order of card templates has not changed

Changes to the front and back template will not prevent updates.

If changes have been made to the fields or card templates and you want to apply updates, you will need to modify the note type in your collection to match the one in the deck you're trying to import. To do this, you can import the shared deck into a new profile, note down the note type's fields and card templates, and then compare them with the note type in your profile.

If you're not concerned with updates, and just want to grab any new cards, one way to make importing work is to delete the old note type via the Tools>Manage Note Types screen. This will delete any cards associated with it, so if you wish to preserve the existing cards, you'll need to manually use the Change Note Type option in the browse screen to move them to a new note type.

Please note that if the deck sharer has used the 'change note type' option in their collection, they will have permanently broken link between your copy and theirs, and updating via .apkg import will not be possible even if your note type's fields and card templates match. You can check the note types are linked by using the following command in the debug console while looking at a card in the study screen:

pp(card()['_note'].mid)

Repeat for the shared deck imported into a temporary profile. If the numbers match, the note types are still linked.

If one of the fields in the shared deck has not been altered, it is also possible to apply updates via a text import. After importing the shared deck into a temporary profile, use File>Export to save the notes in txt format. Then in your original profile, you can import the text file, matching against a field that has not changed. Text imports can only operate on one note type at once, so if the shared deck you've downloaded contains multiple note types, you'll need to do the process one note type at a time. More info is at https://docs.ankiweb.net/importing/packaged-decks.html#updating.

Sound/image media files have gone missing!

Anki stores your cards' sound and image files on your computer, in your Anki folder, in User 1/collection.media. If you delete any files from that folder, Anki notes they have been removed and on the next sync it will remove them from your other devices as well. What sometimes happens is users tidy up files on their computer, and accidentally remove the sounds and images that their cards use, resulting in sounds not playing or images not appearing. This is particularly easy to do accidentally on a Mac with the "all my files" feature of the Finder, but can happen on other platforms as well.

You can use Anki's Tools>Check Media function to find out which images are missing from your collection by looking at the "Used on cards but missing from media folder" section.

If you've accidentally deleted the files your cards were using, you may be able to restore them from your recycle bin / trash can if the trash has not been emptied yet. Placing them back in the collection.media folder should cause the media to work again.

If you are unable to recover your media from any of your devices, we may be able to restore it from AnkiWeb's backups for you if it was deleted recently.

If you've lost your sound and images, but had obtained them from a shared deck, if the shared deck is still available you can import it into a new profile, and then copy the sounds and images from it into your original collection to restore the data.

When editing fields, Anki shows the names of sound files. To see the names of image files, you can press ctrl+shift+x while the cursor is in the field with the image (cmd+shift+x on a Mac). For an image or sound file to work, a file with the exact same file name must be in the collection.media folder.

Splitting a field into multiple fields

Recent Anki versions

With recent Anki versions, there is no need to export+import. An example is provided in this forum post.

Older Anki versions

Sometimes you may create a deck, or download a shared deck, with several things in one field, such as text and audio, but then later decide that you would rather have the information in two fields so that you can have more precise control over what displays on each card. One option is to add a new field and then manually cut and paste the content between fields; this may be the fastest if you have less than a hundred cards or so, but otherwise it will be very tedious and slow. Here is a method you can use based on exporting to a text file and doing a search and replace; as an example, we'll focus on

1. If the field you want to split is the first field, make a different field the first field by using the Reposition button in the Fields dialog. This field needs to be unique, so that no two cards have the same content in that field. If you don't have any unique fields except the one you're trying to split, you can use the add note ID add-on to add a unique field to the notes.
2. Export the entire deck to a text file, using the Notes in plain text choice.
3. Add a new field to your note type. The new field should come immediately after the one that you're trying to split, so if you had a "Word and Audio" field, you could rename it to "Word" and then add an "Audio" field and reposition it to go after the "Word" field.
4. Open the text file and do the search and replace. If your text editor supports a certain form of regular expressions, this might work for the expression: s/\[sound/\t\[sound/. Otherwise, if you're not sure how to form the expression, you can ask on the Community section or look for regular expression help on the Internet.
5. Import the text file back into your collection, making sure to use the correct note type and deck. Your notes will be updated with the newly split field.

If you run into problems, please ask on the Community category, as this is outside the scope of the official support we can provide for Anki.

Text to speech support

For Anki 2.1.20+

Please see https://docs.ankiweb.net/templates/fields.html#text-to-speech-for-individual-fields

For AnkiMobile 2.0.56+

Please see https://docs.ankimobile.net/tts.html

For AnkiDroid

Please search for TTS in the AnkiDroid manual.

For older Anki versions

There is a popular add-on called AwesomeTTS that supports a number of text to speech programs and services. You can read more about it here:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/814349176

It works by downloading the audio into your collection, so that when you sync with AnkiWeb, your other devices will gain access to the audio as well.

If you want to use the generated files outside the computer version, make sure you use the stored files mode and not 'on the fly'.

While AnkiMobile <2.0.56 has no official support for on-device TTS, Apple introduced TTS support in iOS7, and it is possible to gain access to it. The following is based on a user-contributed solution.

<span id="word">{{Word}}</span>

<script>
  var w = document.getElementById("word");
  window.setTimeout("speak(w.innerHTML)", 500);

  function speak(word) {
    var speech = new SpeechSynthesisUtterance();
    speech.text = word;
    speech.volume = 1; // 0 to 1
    speech.rate = 1; // 0.1 to 9
    speech.pitch = 1; // 0 to 2, 1=normal
    speech.voice = window.speechSynthesis
      .getVoices()
      .filter((v) => v.lang == "en-GB")[0];
    speechSynthesis.cancel();
    speechSynthesis.speak(speech);
  }
</script>

You can change en-GB to other languages like en-US, de-DE, ja-JP, zh-HK, etc. You can use the example section on the following page to see all the different languages. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SpeechSynthesis/getVoices

You may need to install the Enhanced audio files for the language you want to play, which you can do so via the Settings app, then General, Accessibility, Speech and Voices.

When adding a new card, some fields do not reset!

Anki supports adjusting sticky fields directly from the editor window from v 2.1.45. This feature can be turned on / off by clicking on the pin icon on the right of a field.

If the pin icon is inactive, Anki will clear out the field's content after a note is added.

A deck I want has disappeared from AnkiWeb

The shared decks on AnkiWeb are provided by other Anki users. If the deck author has chosen to remove a shared deck, the deck has been deleted from our servers, and we do not have the ability to restore it.

Shared decks may also be hidden from view for other reasons, such as their copyright status needing to be confirmed. For legal reasons, we can not restore decks in these cases until we hear back from the deck author.

A shared deck is not showing images/playing audio

Some shared decks are missing sounds or images, either because the author expects you to download them from a separate location, or because they've accidentally or deliberately omitted them.

When downloading a shared deck from AnkiWeb, the number of included sounds and images is listed near the top of the download page.

If you've downloaded a shared deck from somewhere other than AnkiWeb and media files are not working, please contact the sharer for assistance.

Cards are being placed in the "Default" deck

This is usually caused by an AnkiDroid bug, but can happen for other reasons as well. To fix the problem, please click the Cards button while adding a card, select the card type you're having trouble with via the tabs at the top, and ensure Options>Deck Override (More>Deck Override on Anki 2.0) is turned off.

Hiding Decks

If you do not intend to study a deck for some time do not want to delete it, you may wish to hide it. There are two ways to do this.

A) Export the deck and delete it.

1. Choose File → Export. Select Anki Deck Package (*.apkg) from the Export Format drop-down.
2. Select the deck to be removed from the Include drop-down.
3. Make sure that Include scheduling information and Include media are checked—otherwise you will have lost your review history and possibly your media when it comes time to use the deck again.
4. Click Export and save the apkg file somewhere you can find it again.
5. Finally, delete the deck from your collection.

You can restore the deck to your collection by choosing File → Import and importing the deck again. It will be restored with the same name it had when you exported it.

B) Create an "unused" deck.

You can create a tree of decks in Anki by dragging and dropping the decks in the deck list. You can use a combination of this property and options groups to hide decks you do not intend to use:

1. Click Create Deck and add a deck called "Unused," "Hidden," or something similar. You can place a tilde (~) before the name (like "~Unused") if you want to force the deck to appear at the bottom of the list.
2. Drag and drop the deck you wish to hide to underneath the new deck. Then collapse the Unused deck by clicking the minus sign next to the name.
3. You can stop here if you're happy with this; however, if you leave it this way, due counts will still be displayed. If you would rather get rid of them, continue with step 4.
4. Click the options button next to the Unused deck and choose Options.
5. Click the options button in the upper-right-hand corner and add a new options group (you can call it "unused deck" or something similar).
6. On the New Cards tab, select a new cards/day limit of 0. On the reviews tab, select a maximum reviews/day limit of 0.

To restore the deck, simply drag and drop it back into the main deck list (you can go either to the very top or the very bottom of the list to get the top level). You can leave the Unused deck for future use.

How can I work with someone else to create a deck?

Anki's collaboration support is limited at the moment, but it is possible for multiple people to work on content together.

If you are creating cards that have no sounds or images, then the easiest option may be to take advantage of an online document collaboration service such as Google Drive.

With this system, you create your cards in a spreadsheet (one column per field in the note type you're using). To allow updating easily, the first column should be one that you do not expect to change if you update the cards. You can add and edit cards together at whatever time you want; when you're ready to update your collection with new and updated cards, each user can export the spreadsheet to a text file and import it into Anki.

If you are creating cards that contain images or sounds, it gets more complicated. You can use the above approach, but it means you'll need to distribute the media files separately. Instead, we recommend taking turns to create the content. For example, if students are collaborating on a class, student A creates a deck "lesson 1" and puts all the first lesson content in it, then student B creates "lesson 2", and so on. As each lesson is done, the student exports the deck to an apkg file, and uploads/emails/etc it, and the other people import it.

Using a separate deck for each unit of work makes it easier to export the content separately, instead of sharing everything that's been created so far (which would lead to large files). After other users import the content, they can move it to another deck if they wish, using the computer version.

Advanced users can skip the separate deck step by instead creating a filtered deck using something like 'added:7' to only include cards added in the last 7 days, and then exporting that filtered deck to share.

There are also add-ons available that support collaboration, such as AnkiHub or AnkiCollab. Additional add-ons offering similar functionality can be found on the shared add-ons page.

How do I move cards between decks?

You may want to move cards between decks for a variety of reasons, for example:

• you accidentally put them in the wrong deck
• you made a single large deck and want to break it into several smaller ones
• you made several small decks and want to combine them into a larger one

The browser offers a Change Deck option in the menu bar for these kinds of tasks.

See also Merging/combining two decks for more precise instructions for that exact situation.

If you want to move cards between profiles, or share cards with other people, you can use Anki's export function to export a packaged deck. If you want to share or move to a new profile only some of the cards in a deck, you can first use the change deck option above to move them into a temporary deck, then export that deck.

Merging/combining two decks

Anki does not have an explicit feature to combine decks, but you can accomplish this easily by moving all the cards in one deck to the other deck. Please follow these steps:

1. Open the browser (click Browse at the top of Anki's main window) and select one of the decks you want to merge in the left pane.
2. Select all the cards (Edit → Select All or Ctrl-A) and click the Change Deck option in the menu bar. Select the other deck and click Move Cards.
3. If you want to merge more than two decks, repeat steps 1 and 2 as necessary until you have only one deck remaining.
4. Close the browser to return to the deck list and delete the now-empty deck(s) by clicking the settings button to the right of each. (Anki will warn you if you try to delete a deck that still has cards in it.)

See also How do I move cards between decks?.

Shared decks with broken Javascript

Some shared decks make use of a feature called 'Javascript', which allows them to dynamically modify the display of the card. Javascript can be fragile, which is why the Anki manual recommends deck authors avoid it. It may break when Anki is updated, or when the deck author has not tested their Javascript on the different Anki platforms.

If you encounter a Javascript error in a shared deck, please post a review on the shared deck download page to let the deck author and other users know of the problem. If the deck author is active, they will hopefully address the issue in a future update.

If the deck author is unable to help you, you can try edit your card template to remove the Javascript to prevent an error from showing. Depending on what the Javascript was doing, this may result in lost functionality.

To do so, using the computer version of Anki:

• Use File>Export to export your entire collection with scheduling information. This will give you a backup that you can restore to if anything goes wrong.
• Edit a card, and click the Cards... button.
• Look for areas in the front and back template that start with <script> and end with </script>. Remove the start and end, and everything in between.
• Confirm that the card displays in the review screen without error. If it's working ok, you can sync your changes to AnkiWeb and then to your other devices.
• If removing the script has completely broken the card, use File>Import to restore to the backup you created.

Importing/exporting fails due to timestamps in the future

Some shared decks include cards/notes with invalidate creation dates, eg they say cards were created in the year 40000 instead of the year 2023. This causes a variety of problems, and causes any cards created after importing such a deck to end up with similarly-invalid timestamps.

To prevent this problem spreading, recent Anki versions will refuse to export decks that have invalid dates.

When exporting

If you receive this message when exporting, you can fix it using one of the following methods:

• On a 2.1.61+ computer version, use the Tools>Check Database menu item.
• On AnkiMobile 2.0.90+, use Check Database in the preferences screen.

When importing

The Anki versions mentioned in the previous section can now automatically fix problem decks when importing.

Anki's not showing me all my cards!

Anki decides which cards you see

Anki was designed to help you remember large amounts of material for a long time. To do this, it operates differently to a traditional flashcard program.

In a conventional flashcard program, you see the same set of cards over and over again, and decide when you want to stop. Repeatedly reviewing material in this way - "cramming" - tends to be what we're used to, and for many people it feels like the natural way to study.

There's just one problem with this approach - it's not terribly effective! Studies have shown that you can achieve better results by adding a delay between each review of an item, instead of reviewing it multiple times in a short period. This delay between reviews is called "spaced repetition".

In Anki, instead of going over material until you decide to stop, Anki chooses which cards you need to see. If you press the Again button on a card because you've forgotten it, it will be shown again soon. Once you've remembered the card correctly for 10 minutes, Anki will not show the card again until the next day - and if you answer it correctly then, the delay will grow larger each time.

If you are new to spaced repetition, you may well be skeptical, and you may still feel that cramming would help you more. You are not alone - studies have shown that people tend to assume that cramming will be more effective, even when results show that spaced repetition actually works better. Please keep an open mind, and try it for a few weeks before you decide which approach is best for you.

If you have a test due in a few days, it's probably not the best time to be starting with Anki. While Anki does have tools to bypass the regular scheduling for things like upcoming tests, they take some time to learn how to use, and they are awkward to use on a daily basis. If you have an imminent test, you may want to consider studying as you have done previously, and then picking Anki back up when you're not under as much pressure.

New cards

By default, Anki will show you a maximum of 20 new cards each day. The reason for this limit is because those cards will need to be reviewed in the coming days - such as the next day, and then a few days after, and so on. Each day you use Anki, another 20 cards will be introduced, and the reviews will start to add up - if you're adding 20 new cards each day, you can expect the daily reviews in the early stages to build up to around 200 cards/day.

It is possible to increase the number of new cards that are presented each day by adjusting the deck options or using the custom study feature, but please be careful - if you try to learn too many new cards at once, you'll find the follow-up reviews overwhelming, and you'll end up forgetting the material again. While you're no doubt eager to get stuck into your material, it's a good idea to try Anki with the default options for a week or two before you think about changing the limits.

Reviews

Anki will show cards you've previously reviewed when it thinks you will forget them. The delays will start from a single day, but can grow into months or years if you repeatedly answer a card correctly.

Unless you have a test coming up soon, it's best to review cards as Anki schedules them. Try to resist the urge to review material multiple times to reinforce it - it is more efficient to just wait a while than to view the same content over and over again. If you do find yourself with free time, consider adding some more new cards to Anki instead, or doing some other studies.

If you have a test coming up and need to review the material before it is due, you can tell Anki you'd like to review outside of the regular schedule. If you just want to quickly flip through some cards to check for mistakes after creating them or get a general idea of what's there, you can use the Preview button in the upper-right corner of the Browse screen.

Card counts dropping down by more than one

If you're seeing the card count drop down by more than one after certain operations like an undo, please see https://anki.tenderapp.com/kb/problems/i-created-reversed-cards-but-theyre-not-showing-up.

Related

Settings for using Anki to prepare for a large exam

Can I study my cards in a particular order?

New cards

By default, new cards are introduced by their due number. If you open the Browse screen and look at the due column, you'll see new cards have numbers like New #1, New #2, and so on. Anki will show the card with the smallest due number first. If you'd like to change the order, you can select one or more cards, then use the Reposition action in the Cards menu.

The number of new cards that will be introduced each day depends on the daily limits you've set in the deck options.

When you have multiple cards for a note (for example, both forward->backward and backward->forward cards, or multiple cloze deletions on a note), those cards will have the same new number, and you may want those cards to be shown on different days, or spaced apart, or shown one after the other depending on your preferences.

• To have the cards shown on different days, enable burying in the deck options.
• Sibling cards are spaced apart by default.
• To have the cards shown next to each other, enable the v3 scheduler, and then change the sort order in the deck options, in the display order section.

Reviews

Because Anki is designed to show you cards again when you're about to forget them, it is not possible to preserve the original order when cards come up again for review, as the cards may have been scheduled on different days. For this reason, you should design your cards so that they do not rely on context or certain other cards having been seen first, or you'll find it difficult to review them.

If you have a backlog of reviews, there is some flexibility in the order review cards are presented. After enabling the v3 scheduler, please see the display options in the deck's options.

While the regular review process will not show cards in order, you can use the Browse screen to sort your cards in a particular order, and then use the Preview button to go through the cards in that order. This bypasses Anki's usual learning process, and will not alter the scheduling of the cards or their review history.

Due times after a break

When you use Anki every day, each time a card is answered correctly, it gets a bigger interval. Let’s assume that 'good' about doubles the interval. Thus you have a 5 day wait, then a 10 day wait, 20 days, 40 days, and so on.

When people return to their deck after weeks or months of no study, they’re often surprised by the length intervals have grown to. This is because Anki considers the actual time the card was unseen, not just the time it was scheduled for. Thus if the card was scheduled for 5 days but you didn’t study for a month, the next interval will be closer to 60 days than 10 days.

This is a good thing. If you have successfully remembered a card after a one month wait, chances are you’ll remember it again after a longer wait, too. The same principles which make SRS effective in normal use apply when you’re studying after a delay, too. It also makes little sense to schedule a card for 10 days in the future if you were able to easily answer it after a whole month’s wait - you’d be going backwards.

Resetting the deck is an even worse solution. When returning to a deck after a long absence, you may have forgotten many of your cards, but chances are you haven’t forgotten them all. Resetting the entire deck means you have to waste time studying material you already know.

Now you may find overdue cards that you were able to recall, but not comfortably, since they were not reviewed when they should have been. To counter this, Anki treats the delay differently depending on your answer. If you find a card easy, the last interval plus the full delay are added together, and then used to calculate the next interval. When you answer good, only half the delay is used. And when you answer hard, none of the extra delay is used. So if a card was due in 5 days, and it’s answered 20 days late, the next times you’d end up with are approximately:

• Hard: 5 * 1.2 = 6 days

• Good: (5 + 20/2) * 2.5 = 37.5 days

• Easy: (5 + 20) * 3.25 = 81.25 days

The exact numbers will depend on your past performance with the card, and your deck settings.

If you find a card hard, the next interval is conservative and any extra delay is discarded. If you find it good, the next interval is only about 50% higher. And easy increases the interval aggressively as usual.

So it is recommended that you study as normal when you return to Anki after a period of absence. But if you absolutely must reset the deck, you can select the cards to reset in the browser, and use Cards>Forget.

Extra copies of a card are coming up

Occasionally you may have been editing a note type and later discover that a number of cards are duplicated (sometimes there may even be more copies).

You can fix this as follows:

1. Find one of the duplicated cards in the browser.
2. Click the Cards button.
3. Select each card type in the top drop-down box in turn, and compare the contents of the template fields and card preview pane. If the card types are identical, delete one of them (Options → Delete).

This should remove all the duplicate cards that use this note type. (If you are still having problems, it's possible that multiple note types have the issue, in which case you can repeat these steps with a card of the other note type.)

Hard/good interval is longer than good/easy

When a card is in learning:

• Again will be the first learning step
• Hard will repeat the current learning step (except on the first step, where it is the average of first and second steps)
• Good will the the next learning step, or the Graduating interval if learning steps are exhausted
• Easy will be the Easy Interval

If the learning steps are set to be longer than the graduating or easy interval, Hard/Good might show longer intervals than Good/Easy.

I'm going on vacation. Can I pause the scheduler?

Being able to come back from a break to find Anki in exactly the same state you left it in may sound attractive, but unfortunately while it's easy to tell the computer to suspend its estimates of how quickly you are forgetting, it's not possible to suspend your memory, so memories will continue to decay if you don't review. If you paused the scheduler, you would be delaying the review of every card in your deck, increasing your chance of forgetting every one of them, even those that would normally have appeared after you returned from your break.

Anki does have a "Set Due Date" feature in the Browse screen that can change the due date of cards. You can use this to either to move cards to an earlier due date (allowing you to study more before you take a break), or to push cards back to a later date. Conservative changes are recommended - if you alter the due date of cards by too much, there is a good chance you will forget them and need to relearn them again.

Learning steps are skipped or repeated

If you change the learning steps while cards are already in learning, you may find the cards skip or repeat steps until you mark them Again or they graduate the learning queue.

This issue no longer exists if you change the learning steps in Anki 2.1.55+.

Resetting progress in a deck

Sometimes you may want to "reset" part of your collection so that the cards become new again and the scheduling algorithm starts from the beginning. For instance, you might have completely changed a card or updated it so that you need to start learning it again, or you may have flipped through some cards without really studying if you were just trying to take a look at the cards or figure out how Anki works.

Resetting part of your collection because you are behind is not recommended. While it can be tough to recover from a backlog of cards, erasing all the progress you have made is the worst possible thing you can do: you will still remember many of those cards, and you'll have to start them all over even though you could have pushed "easy." Instead, consider setting up a daily review limit ("maximum reviews/day" in the options) and studying a set number of the overdue cards each day until you catch up.

Resetting cards within Anki

1. Find the cards you want to reset in the browser.
2. Select all the cards and choose Cards->Reset (or Cards->Forget in older versions).

When you do this, Anki will turn the cards back into new cards. If you click Info in the browser you'll see any previous reviews you've done listed there, but that history will not influence how the cards are scheduled: they will be treated just like new cards.

Removing the review history

If you accidentally imported the review history of someone else, because they shared their deck with scheduling, you can use the Remove card history add-on to remove the history of selected cards.

Settings for using Anki to prepare for a large exam

If you have started using Anki to help prepare for a large exam some weeks or months in the future, you may wonder how you should best configure it to get you ready for the test. Anki’s default settings are primarily configured to be useful for learning and remembering information over the long term, but this is usually the best way to prepare for an exam as well – you just need to make sure that you finish the material in enough time to be ready for the exam when it comes.

How many new cards per day?

The most important question is how many new cards you need to study every day in order to be ready by the time the test comes around. A very simple way to calculate this is to divide the total number of cards you have by the number of days you have to study, but before doing this, you should usually make a couple of modifications to the number of days you have to study:

• If you have the time, generally it is a good idea to leave 2–4 weeks between the time you will study the last new material and the time you will be tested on it. This way, you have time to consolidate all of the material so you will feel confident on it, as well as some time to do extra review right before the test. So you should subtract somewhere between 14 and 30 days from the number of days you have left.
• If you’re like most people, you probably will miss a few days of study now and then, so it’s a good idea to plan to subtract a few days for this so that you won’t get further behind when you do.
• If you anticipate adding more cards between now and the exam, you will need to account for the amount of extra material you plan to add.

After making these modifications, you can divide the total number of cards in your deck by the adjusted number of days to get the number of new cards per day you should study; you can set this number on the new cards tab of the deck options screen. You can find out how many new cards are in the deck by selecting it in the deck list, choosing Browse at the top of the window, pressing Enter to search for the current deck, and looking at the title bar.

Doing extra review

If you get through all of your new cards with time to spare and your exam is in a couple of days, you may wish to run quickly through all of your cards or some subset of them to brush up on the ones that you’ve forgotten since your last review. You can use Anki’s custom study feature to study extra cards; please see the linked section of the manual for instructions and available options.

Old scheduler versions

This section includes information about the currently outdated scheduler versions.

v1 scheduler

Review cards

• When a deck has subdecks, the cards appear from each deck in turn.
• The v1 scheduler applies parent limits to subdecks, regardless of which deck you click on to study.

(Re)learning cards

• The Easy button is not shown if the card is in relearning state. In learning state, both Easy and Hard isn't shown.
• The card count shows reviews needed to finish all the cards in a queue, not the number of cards. Thus, one (re)learning card can be counted multiple times in the count.
• Suspending or burying (re)learning cards move them back to the new card queue or review queue.

New cards

• The v1 scheduler applies parent limits to subdecks, regardless of which deck you click on to study.

Filtered decks

• Cards are presented more similarly to how they normally are, but studying cards have side effects, and the original position of new cards is lost when you study them.

• The custom steps option allows you to override the home deck’s steps and provide your own steps instead. The provided steps apply to both cards being learnt, lapsed reviews, and reviews ahead of time.

• If you create, rebuild, empty, or delete a filtered deck while cards are still in learning, they are turned into new cards. In the case of failed reviews in relearning, any remaining relearning steps are skipped.

• Cards cannot be buried or suspended while remaining in filtered deck.

• Filtered decks only have a single filter.

• Filtered decks cannot pull in cards in (re)learning state.

• Filtered decks don't show all 4 answer buttons when rescheduling is turned off.

Fuzz factor

• Fuzz factor isn't included in next review time shown above answer buttons. If you’re noticing a slight discrepancy between what you select and the intervals your cards actually get, this is probably the cause.

v2 scheduler

Review cards

• When a deck has subdecks, review cards are gathered from all subdecks at once.

• The review limit is taken from the deck you click to study. If you have a deck tree Parent::Child::Grandchild and you select Child, the limits you have set on Parent and Grandchild are ignored.

New cards

• The v2 scheduler applies parent limits to subdecks, regardless of which deck you click on to study.

Filtered decks

• Filtered decks don't show all 4 answer buttons when rescheduling is turned off.

Fuzz factor

• Fuzz factor isn't included in next review time shown above answer buttons. If you’re noticing a slight discrepancy between what you select and the intervals your cards actually get, this is probably the cause.

Updating to v2 from v1

If you are syncing with AnkiWeb, updating requires a one-way upload to AnkiWeb. Please ensure all of your devices are in sync before you update, as otherwise you may accidentally overwrite changes made on your other devices.

Before updating, it is recommended you export a backup. Using the computer version, you can use the File > Export menu item to create a .colpkg file containing all decks and scheduling. Using AnkiMobile, you can use the Add/Export option to export a .colpkg file. In the unlikely case that you run into problems, you will be able to restore from the backup.

Once you have updated, please sync and choose Upload to send the upgraded collection to AnkiWeb. Then please sync any other devices you use, choosing Download on each of them, to bring things back into sync.

Anki 2.1.41+/AnkiMobile 2.0.75+

To update, click the Update message shown in the deck list.

Unlike previous Anki versions, cards in learning will not be reset, and cards in filtered decks will remain filtered. The new scheduler handles filtered decks differently, so custom steps you may have set will no longer apply, but filtered decks with rescheduling enabled will not reset learning cards.

Once you've updated, there is no option to switch back to the old scheduler. While it is possible to switch back to an older version of Anki on your computer and then change the scheduler in the preferences, please bear in mind that it will require your learning cards and filtered decks to be reset.

Earlier Anki versions

Anki versions earlier than 2.1.41 reset all cards in learning prior to updating, and move all cards in filtered decks back to their original decks. This is problematic for people with longer learning steps. If you're in that situation, it is recommended you update with 2.1.41 or later.

The Anki v3 Scheduler

The 2021 scheduler ("v3") is an update to the Anki 2.1 scheduler ("v2").

Enabling

As of Anki/AnkiMobile 23.10, and AnkiDroid 2.17, the v3 scheduler is the default and only option.

On earlier versions, the scheduler can be changed from the preferences screen.

Compatibility

The v2 and v3 schedulers are compatible. You can switch between them without a full sync, and it will not cause scheduling issues if you use v3 on one device and sync with another device that is using v2.

Client support:

• Anki: 2.1.45+
• AnkiMobile: 2.0.75+
• AnkiWeb: yes
• AnkiDroid: 2.17.0+

Because the v3 scheduler uses a different approach to gathering and sorting cards, a v2 and v3 client may show a different number of due cards on a given day, and may show them in a different order.

Changes

Undo

The v3 scheduler uses Anki's new undo infrastructure: you can answer a card, bury another card, answer a different card, then undo each action in turn. Previous schedulers handled undo for review and non-review actions separately, so performing an action for one would clear the undo history for the other.

Daily limits

By default, the review limit in the v3 scheduler also applies to new cards, so that new card introduction is reduced/paused when you have a backlog of reviews. For example, if you have limits of 200 review cards and 20 new cards, and 190 review cards are due, only 10 new cards will be introduced. This prevents the backlog from getting worse.

If you find this happening, the recommended solution is to increase your review limit, and work through the backlog before you add more new cards. If you're sure you want to add more new cards even though you have a backlog, you can enable the "New cards ignore review limit" option in deck options.

The limits of each deck will control the number of cards that are gathered from that deck and its subdecks. Limits are applied from the deck you select, so if you select a child deck, its parents' limits will not apply. For example, if the following limits are set:

• Parent: 100
• Parent::Child: 30
• Parent::Child::Grandchild1: 50
• Parent::Child::Grandchild2: 5
• Parent::Child::Grandchild3: 200

Then:

• If you select Grandchild3, you'll get up to 200 cards.
• If you select Grandchild2, you'll get up to 5 cards.
• If you select Grandchild1, you'll get up to 50 cards.
• If you select Child, you'll get up to 30 cards from the Child deck and its subdecks. No more than 5 cards will be taken from Grandchild2.
• If you select Parent, you'll get up to 100 cards, with a maximum of 30 coming from Child and its subdecks.

In earlier Anki releases, the v3 scheduler did not respect intermediate limits, so when clicking on parent, the limits of child did not influence how many cards were taken from the grandchild decks.

Sorting

Additional deck options have been added to control the order new cards and review cards are presented in. New cards can be mixed from multiple decks, and review cards can optionally be ordered by interval or subdeck.

When burying is disabled, with the v3 scheduler it's possible to control whether siblings are shown together or not, by adjusting the display order.

The options controlling the mixing of new cards and interday learning cards have been moved from the Preferences screen into the deck options. The options will be used from the deck you select to study.

Burying

When burying is enabled, cards are now excluded from the card counts at the start of a study session. Previously if you had 10 forward and 10 reversed cards, the counts would start at 20 and jump down as you review, but with v3 they'll start directly at 10.

Because siblings are skipped when you click on a deck, the counts you see on the deck list will differ from the ones you see when you click on a deck. The overview screen will point out the number of cards that were waiting but have been skipped.

Learning cards that cross a day boundary ("interday learning cards") can be buried like review and new cards.

Fuzz

The small random delay added to intervals is reflected on the answer buttons, instead of only being applied when answering.

The way the delay is calculated has also been improved - cards with intervals under a week receive a more equally-weighted delay, and the delay amount increases more smoothly as intervals increase.

Interday learning

Interday learning cards are now subject to the review limit. When determining what fits within the limit, Anki gathers interday learning cards first, then review cards, and finally new cards.

Filtered decks

Filtered decks with rescheduling disabled show 4 answer buttons. You can configure a time delay for each button. Setting this delay to 0 for an answer button means that button will return the card to its home deck.

In earlier releases, a delay could be configured for "Again". "Hard" used 1.5x that delay, whereas "Good" used 2x that delay, and "Easy" returned the card to its home deck.

Add-ons and custom scheduling

The v3 scheduler is a ground-up rewrite, so add-ons that modified the previous scheduler's card-gathering or answering routines will not work with it. It is no longer possible to selectively replace parts of the scheduler's code ("monkey patching"), so some add-ons may not be practical to port without significant effort.

However, the v3 scheduler does provide more control over the scheduling. As each card is presented, the times and states associated with each answer button are calculated in advance, and it is possible to modify the calculated scheduling with some JavaScript code entered into the bottom of the deck options screen.

The code you enter applies to the entire collection, and not just decks using the preset.

Here's an example. Please note that it uses modern JavaScript that will need to be transpiled if you want to use it with the Qt5 version of Anki.

For example:

// print the existing states
console.log(
  JSON.stringify(states, null, 4)
);

// load the debugger if the web inspector is open
debugger;

// if the hard button is a learning step, make it
// a 123 minute delay
if (states.hard.normal?.learning) {
  states.hard.normal.learning.scheduledSecs = 123 * 60;
}

// apply the same change in a rescheduling filtered deck
if (states.hard.filtered?.rescheduling?.originalState?.learning) {
  states.hard.filtered.rescheduling.originalState.learning.scheduledSecs =
    123 * 60;
}

// increase ease factor by 0.2 when Easy used on a review
if (states.good.normal?.review) {
  states.easy.normal.review.easeFactor =
    states.good.normal.review.easeFactor + 0.2;
}

Because this is implemented in JavaScript, it is not limited to the computer version. AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid both support it as well, and AnkiWeb may also support it in the future. This will allow advanced users to make adjustments to the standard scheduling behaviour, that apply on all platforms.

The various scheduling states are described in SchedulingStates.

Timezone handling changes

Anki 2.1.22+, AnkiMobile 2.0.57+, and AnkiDroid 2.15+ contain an optional change to the way Anki calculates the elapsed number of days. This change addresses some corner cases where timezone changes (including daylight savings) could cause Anki to move back or forward a day, and addresses cards being unburied / daily counts being reset for some users when syncing with AnkiWeb.

For most users, the new calculation should produce the same number of elapsed days as the old calculation. For some users, enabling this code may move Anki forward or back by one day, but this will only happen once, and Anki should be more robust against timezone changes afterwards.

Please make sure you are running the above-mentioned versions prior to enabling the new code. If any of your Anki clients have not been updated yet, you won't be able to sync them while this feature is enabled.

To enable the new calculation, please make sure:

• your devices are in sync
• you're running Anki 2.1.22+
• 2.1 scheduler or higher is enabled in the preferences screen

Then to enable the new timezone code, please check the 'new timezone' checkbox.

Please close the window and sync, then sync your other devices to complete the process.

If you notice any problems with the new handling, please let us know.

What spaced repetition algorithm does Anki use?

SM-2

As of Anki 23.10, Anki has two available algorithms. The first one is based on the SuperMemo 2 algorithm, and the second one is called FSRS.

Anki’s algorithm differs from SM-2 in some respects. Notably:

• SM-2 defines an initial interval of 1 day then 6 days. With Anki, you have full control over the length of the initial learning steps. Anki understands that it can be necessary to see a new card a number of times before you’re able to memorize it, and those initial "failures" don’t mean you need to be punished by being shown the failed card many times over the course of a few days. Performance during the learning stage does not reflect performance in the retaining stage.

• Anki uses 4 choices for answering review cards, not 6. There is only one fail choice, not 3. The reason for this is that failure comprises a small amount of total reviews, and thus adjusting a card’s ease can be sufficiently done by simply varying the positive answers.

• Answering cards later than scheduled will be factored into the next interval calculation, so you receive a boost to cards that you were late in answering but still remembered.

• Like SM-2, Anki’s failure button resets the card interval by default. But the user can choose to have the card’s interval reduced instead of being reset completely. Also, you can elect to review failed mature cards on a different day, instead of the same day.

• Remembered easily not only increments the ease factor, but adds an extra bonus to the current interval calculation. Thus, answering remembered easily is a little more aggressive than the standard SM-2 algorithm.

• Successive failures while cards are in learning do not result in further decreases to the card’s ease. A common complaint with the standard SM-2 algorithm is that repeated failings of a card cause the card to get stuck in "low interval hell". In Anki, the initial acquisition process does not influence a card’s ease.

FSRS

FSRS aims to learn your memory patterns and schedule reviews more efficiently than SM-2.

FSRS is based on the "Three Component Model of Memory". The model asserts that three variables are sufficient to describe the status of a unitary memory in a human brain. These three variables include:

• Retrievability (R): The probability that the person can successfully recall a particular information at a given moment. It depends on the time elapsed since the last review and the memory stability (S).

• Stability (S): The time, in days, required for R to decrease from 100% to 90%. For example, S = 365 means that an entire year will pass before the probability of recalling a particular card drops to 90%.

• Difficulty (D): The inherent complexity of a particular information. It represents how difficult it is to increase memory stability after a review.

In FSRS, these three values are collectively called the "memory state". The value of R changes daily, while D and S change only after a card has been reviewed. Each card has its own DSR values, in other words, each card has its own memory state. To accurately estimate the DSR values, FSRS analyzes the user's review history and uses machine learning to find parameters that provide the best fit to the review history.

Note that the users should not tweak the parameters manually. If you want to adjust the scheduling, all you need to do is choose an appropriate value of desired retention. With FSRS, users can target a specific value of retention, allowing them to balance how much they remember and how many reviews they have to do. Higher retention leads to more reviews per day.

Aside from allowing users to easily control their retention, FSRS has some other advantages when compared to Anki's default algorithm. With FSRS, users have to do fewer reviews than with Anki's default algorithm to achieve the same retention level. FSRS is also much better at scheduling cards that have been reviewed with a delay, for example, if the user took a break from Anki for a few weeks or months.

The scheduling code can be found in rslib/src/scheduler/states. Here is a summary (see the deck options section of the manual for the options that are mentioned in italics):

Learning/Relearning Cards

If you press…​

• Again
  Moves the card back to the first step setted in Learning/Relearning Steps.

• Hard
  Repeats the current step after the first step, and is the average of Again and Good.

• Good
  Moves the card to the next step. If the card was on the final step, the card is converted into a review card (it 'graduates').

• Easy Immediately converts the card into a review card.

New cards have no ease, so no matter how many times you press 'Again' or 'Hard', the future ease factor of the card won't be affected. The same can be said about relearning cards: pressing 'Again' or 'Hard' won't have any effect over the card's ease.

Review Cards

In SM-2, once a card is graduated, it gets an ease factor. By default is 2.5, but you can set another value using the Deck Options.

If you press…​

• Again
  The card is placed into relearning mode, the ease is decreased by 20 percentage points (that is, 20 is subtracted from the ease value, which is in units of percentage points), and the current interval is multiplied by the value of new interval (this interval will be used when the card exits relearning mode).

• Hard
  The card’s ease is decreased by 15 percentage points and the current interval is multiplied by the value of hard interval (1.2 by default)

• Good
  The current interval is multiplied by the current ease. The ease is unchanged.

• Easy
  The current interval is multiplied by the current ease times the easy bonus and the ease is increased by 15 percentage points.

For Hard, Good, and Easy, the next interval is additionally multiplied by the interval modifier. If the card is being reviewed late, additional days will be added to the current interval, as described in a previous FAQ.

In FSRS, once a card is reviewed at least once, it gets assigned DSR values.

If you press…​

• Again
  The card is placed into relearning mode, stability significantly decreases, and difficulty significantly increases.

• Hard
  The card’s stability either increases or stays the same, and difficulty moderately increases.

• Good
  The card’s stability increases, and difficulty may increase or decrease very slightly.

• Easy
  The card’s stability significantly increases, and difficulty moderately decreases.

Limitations

When using SM-2, there are a few limitations on the scheduling values that cards can take. Eases will never be decreased below 130%; SuperMemo’s research has shown that eases below 130% tend to result in cards becoming due more often than is useful and annoying users. Intervals will never be increased beyond the value of maximum interval. Finally, all new intervals (except Again) will always be at least one day longer than the previous interval.

Why doesn’t Anki use SuperMemo’s latest algorithm?

The simple answer is that SuperMemo’s latest algorithm is proprietary, and requires licensing. As Anki is an open source application, it can only make use of algorithms that have been made freely available, such as FSRS. Preliminary tests seem to indicate FSRS is roughly on par with SM-17.

Frequently asked questions about FSRS

Q1: My first interval for Good is 3-5 days, and my first interval for Easy is over a week long! Is this normal?

A1: Yes. FSRS tends to give longer first intervals than SM-2, but for mature cards the opposite is true - FSRS is more conservative.

If you wish to make the intervals shorter, you can increase your desired retention. But note that this will shorten all the intervals, not just the first intervals.

Q2: I only use Again and Good, will FSRS work fine?

A2: Yes. In some cases, FSRS may even be more accurate if you only use Again and Good.

Q3: Is it better to use the same parameters for all my decks or make several different presets with different parameters?

A3: The answer to this question depends entirely on how similar your material is. For example, if you are learning Japanese and geography, it is recommended to use two different presets with different parameters. If you have two decks with Japanese vocabulary, you should use the same preset for both of them. Generally speaking, it's usually better to have different presets.

Q4: How often should I re-optimize parameters?

A4: Once per month should be more than enough. A more sophisticated rule is to optimize every time the number of reviews doubles: after you did 100 reviews, then after 200, then after 400, etc. But the "one month" rule is simpler.

Q5: Does FSRS take into account the amount of time that I spend reviewing a card?

A5: No, FSRS only uses interval lengths and grades. However, the amount of time you spend on reviews is used when calculating optimal retention using the "Compute minimum recommended retention" feature.

Q6: Do I need 1000 reviews before I can optimize parameters?

A6: That was the case in earlier versions of Anki. In Anki 24.06.3 (and newer versions), the optimizer can be used with any number of reviews.

AnkiWeb account removal

As AnkiWeb is a free service, we need to periodically delete unused account data in order to keep costs down. As mentioned in our terms of service, your data may be deleted if you have not accessed your account or synced in the last 6 months.

Once your deck data has expired, it is not possible for us to recover your data from AnkiWeb, but you may be able to recover it if you have a local copy.

What gets deleted

If your AnkiWeb account expires, only the AnkiWeb copy of your data is deleted. Any cards you have stored on your computer, phone or tablet will remain on those devices.

Returning to AnkiWeb after your data has expired

If your account data was deleted due to inactivity, you may still be able to recover that data if you have a copy on your computer or mobile device. You can confirm this by opening Anki or AnkiMobile/AnkiDroid to see if your data is still there. If you had data on your device but accidentally overwrote it in a sync, you may be able to recover it from an automatic backup

If you'd like to start syncing that data with AnkiWeb again, please start by logging in to ankiweb.net using your Anki ID. If your account details are correct, you will find you have 0 cards.

Once you have a valid AnkiWeb login, you can sync your computer or mobile device, enter your details, and then choose "Upload" to send your data back to AnkiWeb. Please make sure to upload, as choosing download would overwrite your local content with your empty AnkiWeb collection.

Avoiding account deletion

Each time you visit ankiweb.net, or use the synchronisation feature in Anki, AnkiMobile or AnkiDroid, your account will automatically be marked as active. The mobile clients do not sync automatically, so simply using them to study will not result in your AnkiWeb account being marked active unless you use the sync button.

If your account has been inactive for 6 months or more, and you used the service for a week or longer, we will send you an email notifying you that deletion is pending. If you'd like to keep your account active, please log in to ankiweb.net and study a card, or sync one of your devices within 30 days.

Backing up your collection

If you're not planning to study for a while, or if you receive an inactivity notice and don't wish to renew your account immediately, please ensure that you have a copy of your collection on your local computer or mobile device. Your data should already be on your device if you've used Anki's synchronisation feature. If you've only used AnkiWeb before, please install the computer version or a mobile client and sync with AnkiWeb in order to download your data.

Shared items

When you share a deck, a copy of the deck without scheduling information is made, and that copy along with any add-ons you share are not subject to the usual data expiry.

Please note however that shared decks will expire if they average less than a few downloads a month, so deck sharing is not a backup mechanism.

Are there limits on file sizes on AnkiWeb?

Collections on AnkiWeb are limited to a compressed size of 100MB, and an uncompressed size of 250MB. This includes the text on your cards and the scheduling information, but does not include sounds/images, as they are stored separately.

Most users will never reach the limit. 25,000 average-sized cards and several years of review history will take up about 25MB, so to hit the limit you usually need to either be copying large amounts of text into each card, or filling your collection with hundreds of thousands of new cards that you aren't actually studying.

At the moment there are no limits on the size of your media, although the size of individual media files is limited to 100MB.

As the usage of Anki and AnkiWeb increases, at some point a pricing system may be introduced where basic, low-capacity accounts are free and heavier users can pay more for more space.

If you have hit the collection size limit, you will see messages about the collection being in an inconsistent state when you do a one way upload to AnkiWeb. It is not possible to increase the limit, because such large collections slow down AnkiWeb for other users. If you have imported a dictionary's worth of content, you will need to move some unused cards to a separate deck, export the deck, and then delete the deck from your collection. After doing so, Tools>Check Database can be used to free up space that was taken by the deleted cards.

Can I sync only some of my decks?

Anki stores all your decks in a single collection file, so there is no way to sync only part of a collection. However, there are several possible workarounds that may be useful:

Use two profiles. You can store the decks you do not want to sync in a separate profile (you can create and manage profiles by choosing File → Switch Profile). This is useful if you have a lot of media that you have no need for on your mobile device, or if you cannot place some data on AnkiWeb because of security or confidentiality issues. However, it has the disadvantage that you will have to switch profiles to review all of your decks, and you will not be able to get combined statistics easily.

If you decide to use two profiles, you can easily move data between them by exporting .apkg files with scheduling information and media.

Use subdecks. If your primary objection to syncing all of your decks is that you simply don't need some of them on the mobile device and don't want to clutter up the screen, you may choose to keep them in your collection and sync them, but keep them out of the way in a separate deck. One way to do this is to create a deck called ~ Desktop Only or something similar and drag all of your desktop-only decks underneath it (the tilde keeps it at the bottom of the deck list; you can use an underscore if you want it at the top or nothing if you want it to sort with the other decks). You can then keep this deck collapsed on your mobile device. While the information will still sync, you will not have to see it.

Email verification

AnkiWeb was previously lax about verifying your email address, sending a message out when you sign up for an account but not requiring that it be responded to. The problem with this is that email hosts don't like it when email is sent to invalid addresses, and we risk the messages we send about the service landing in the spam folder or being dropped completely if the email providers decide the valid/invalid ratio is not good enough.

So to address this, we've had to start verifying your email address is valid once a year. Once you click the link in the verify email message, it tells us your address is current and we are known to you, so we can send you service-related mails in the future (like when you reset your password) with a reasonable degree of certainty that the mails will not bounce back.

Please note our privacy policy has not changed - we will only use your email address for messages related to Anki.

Emails not being received due to "spam"

Some email providers (typically school or business email) outsource spam checking to external companies. Some of these external companies can be heavy-handed when fighting spam, and collateral damage unfortunately happens - innocent parties such as AnkiWeb can end up getting blocked when a different customer on the same network has sent inappropriate mail.

If you have access to an email address at another provider, the fastest solution is to use the Account tab of AnkiWeb to change to your other email address.

If you do not have access to another email address, you could try asking your email provider to remove 23.249.217.77 from the block list they are using. It is a dedicated IP used only by AnkiWeb, hosted in Amazon's network. If your email provider are not able to fix the problem for you, please sign up for a free email address at somewhere like gmail.com instead, as they reliably accept the email we send.

"Error establishing a secure connection." when syncing

This error happens when Anki tries to make a connection to AnkiWeb, and receives an invalid response. It can be caused by:

• antivirus or firewall software on your machine
• a filtered network connection, common on work and school networks
• an unreliable network connection

Antivirus/firewall/VPN/proxy

Antivirus, firewall and VPN programs can often cause problems when they filter network traffic.

The first thing to try is to add an exception for Anki.

If that doesn't work, try disabling your antivirus temporarily.

Unfortunately some antivirus programs do not completely stop themselves when disabled. We have seen cases where the only way to resolve the problem was to completely uninstall the antivirus program. We do not expect you to stop using your antivirus program just to run Anki, but if the previous suggestions have not helped, it is worth uninstalling and restarting your computer to see if it resolves the problem. If it does, then please contact your antivirus company to report the issue to them.

Unreliable internet

If your wifi or internet connection is experiencing troubles, the messages from AnkiWeb may arrive corrupted or not at all, which can cause this error message to occur. It may be worth checking for packet loss:

https://faqs.ankiweb.net/syncing-failed-connection-timed-out-errors-when-syncing.html

Media files may take time to sync

Please take a look at the media syncing intro video. If you prefer not to watch a video, please read on.

Recent Anki and AnkiMobile versions synchronize sounds and images in the background, allowing you to continue using the app while they are transferred. Until the media files have been transferred, audio may fail to play, and images may fail to appear if those files are not available yet.

If you tap/click on the sync button when a spinner is shown next to it, it will reveal more details about the syncing progress. If you are waiting for sounds/images to start working, please wait for that window to show "media sync complete". Once that message has been displayed, it indicates all media files have been transferred to or from your device, and the media should then work during study.

AnkiMobile

If you turn your device's screen off, or you switch to a different app, it will interrupt the sync. When you sync again, the download will resume where it stopped.

If you have a lot of media, the initial sync may take quite a while. AnkiMobile 2.0.64+ will keep the screen turned on while the media syncing screen is shown. Older AnkiMobile versions did not do this, so if you are on an older version and you leave your device unattented, the screen may turn off, interrupting the sync. You can check the version you're running in the Preferences>About screen. If you are on an older version, you can download the free update by searching for AnkiMobile in the app store.

Monitoring progress

The media sync screen will show increasing counts as progress is made. If you find the added/removed count does not change for an extended period, you can use the Abort button to interrupt the sync, then sync again to pick up where you left off.

If problems persist

If sounds or images fail to appear after "media sync complete" is shown, please check that you have syncing of sounds and images enabled in the preferences screen of each Anki version you use, and please use the "Check Media" function in the preferences screen or tools menu to check if you are missing files.

Outlook.com silently discards email

Microsoft's email servers do not reliably deliver email. There are numerous reports on the web of email being successfully delivered to Microsoft's servers, but failing to show up in a user's inbox - even in the spam folder.

You may be able to work around this by clicking on the cog icon in your inbox, going to "Safe and blocked senders", and adding noreply@ankiweb.net to the list of safe senders. You can then visit AnkiWeb's verification page and refresh it until another verification email is sent.

If problems persist, you will need to use a different email provider (such as a free gmail.com account) that reliably delivers email.

Verifying your email may be frustrating, but it is important to have a working contact method - without one, you would not be able to recover your account if you forgot your password.

Synchronizing multiple profiles

Profiles are a feature designed to allow multiple people to study with Anki on the same device. They may also be useful for testing and other similar purposes, but this is not their primary purpose. Profiles are not recommended for dividing up your content, as doing so is unnecessary and limits your options in terms of viewing statistics and moving content around. Profiles are also unsupported on AnkiDroid.

Anki is designed so that each profile syncs with a single AnkiWeb account – this way, each user can have their own account and use it on whichever devices they want.

If you have created multiple profiles for yourself, the best option is to merge them into a single profile. You can do so by exporting one deck from profile A, and then importing it into profile B, repeating for any other decks in profile A, until everything is in profile B.

If you have different users on your computer, each user will need to set up a separate AnkiWeb account for their profile. Attempting to sync different profiles with the same AnkiWeb account will result in lost data.

'Syncing failed: Connection timed out' errors when syncing

Antivirus/firewall software on Windows and corporate/school networks

If syncing never appears to make any progress, it is possible that Anki is completely blocked from connecting to the internet. In that case, you may need to add an exception in your antivirus/firewall, or ask your network administrators for assistance. For more information, please see

https://faqs.ankiweb.net/error-establishing-a-secure-connection-when-syncing.html

If the sync appears to make some progress

When you sync, Anki sends messages to AnkiWeb, and these messages typically flow through a number of networks and countries before they reach AnkiWeb. If one of the networks between you and the AnkiWeb servers is experiencing issues, this can result in connections that run slowly or terminate abruptly.

A typical cause of this is when your internet provider experiences a problem with one of their international links. When this happens, you may find you can access most other sites without any problems, because those sites are hosted in different geographical locations, and thus your connections to them use different networks. Such problems typically take a few hours to a few days to clear up.

Sometimes the problems can be caused more locally. If you're on a distant or congested wifi network, that can also cause the connection to AnkiWeb to become unstable.

Unstable connections tend to become more apparent the more data you transfer. If you are experiencing packet loss you may find you can load ankiweb.net fine most of the time, but still have issues when syncing - especially if you have a lot of data to transfer.

Working around the issue

The best thing to do is try syncing on a different network - using your phone's cellular connection for example, or using your work or school's wifi network. In many cases you will find that resolves the problem, and after waiting a few hours to a few days, the problem with your home network should have gone away.

Determining packet loss

A tool called 'mtr' can be useful for determining packet loss.

• Windows: https://sourceforge.net/projects/winmtr/
• Mac: https://www.reddit.com/r/TagPro/comments/2j6qx7/how_to_run_an_mtr_on_mac/
• Linux: install 'mtr' from your package manager

Once installed, you should use mtr to access 'ankiweb.net', and let it run for about 15 minutes. If any of the steps between your device and the AnkiWeb servers show a packet loss above 0%, it indicates instability.

If you are seeing no packet loss at all but are still having problems syncing, you may be having a different problem - please contact us and let us know.

Sounds/images are not appearing on AnkiWeb or the mobile clients

If you created your deck by importing from a text file, or you downloaded a shared deck that was created in that way, it's possible the filenames in Anki do not match the filenames on the computer. Some computers treat "file.jpg", "file.JPG" and "FILE.JPG" all as the same file, but other computers do not. This means that if the deck contains a reference to "dog.jpg" but the file on disk is "dog.JPG", some devices (including AnkiWeb) will not be able to display the image.

You can confirm this is a problem by editing a card that's not showing up correctly using the computer version. If audio isn't working, you'll see a link like [sound:hello.mp3]. If you see a broken image link, click on that field, then press the down arrow on the top right, choose "Edit HTML", and locate text that looks like:

<img src="cat.jpg" />

Note down the name of the file.

Then open your collection's media folder (https://docs.ankiweb.net/files.html#file-locations) and locate the file that is referenced. If the file does not use exactly the same combination of lowercase or uppercase letters, you've found the problem.

Please also make sure you ran a media check.

If it was a shared deck, please report the issue to the shared deck author. If the differences in case are regular, you can try fix the problem using Anki's find&replace feature in the browser. For example, if the link is for "dog.JPG" but the file on disk is "dog.jpg", you can click browse, select all cards, and use find&replace to replace JPG with jpg.

If that doesn't explain your issue, please check that the computer you're on is not using a vfat/fat32 file system. Anki currently is unable to detect changes to the media folder when it's on such a filesystem, so media syncing will not work in this case. A workaround is planned for a future release.

A shortcut key is not working

Some other program on your computer is likely capturing the shortcut. For example, some users have recently reported that their AMD/ATI video card software is stealing the cloze deletion shortcut key. When they disable the shortcut in that program's preferences, the key starts working in Anki again.

If you run into similar problems, please try temporarily closing/turning off other software running on your machine, until you discover the cause.

If you use add-ons in Anki, please also try disabling them to rule them out as the cause of the problem.

In some cases, using a non-English keyboard layout may cause the problem.

Anki must be able to connect to a local port

When Anki 2.1 starts up, it listens on a port on localhost for requests from the user interface. If you have a proxy server configured on your machine, please go into your proxy settings and make sure that "bypass proxy server for local addresses" is enabled - otherwise Anki's user interface will have its local communication redirected through the proxy, which will prevent Anki from functioning.

More info: https://superuser.com/a/261434

This problem may also occur if you have a firewall running on your machine that blocks local connections, or are using a VPN that is incorrectly redirecting local traffic.

Anki says my clock is wrong

To ensure your scheduling doesn't get messed up, Anki requires that your device's clock is set correctly. This means all of the following must be set correctly:

• the time (including AM/PM)
• the date
• the timezone
• daylight savings

If you receive an error about the clock being wrong, please check to ensure all of the above are set correctly. Please note that even if your system is showing you what looks like the correct time, if the above settings are not correct, the computer's internal idea of the correct time may be wrong.

"What should I do if my country has just changed its handling of daylight savings?"

When politicians change the handling of daylight savings time, it can take companies like Windows and Apple time to update their operating systems to reflect the new handling. To work around the problem, you can select a different timezone that has the same UTC offset as your current location, and then update the clock to make sure it is correct. For example:

• it's 10AM where you are
• you've checked Google for the current standard time, and it's currently midnight: https://www.google.com/search?q=utc+time
• this means you are ten hours ahead of standard time, so your UTC offset is +10:00
• in your system settings, look for a timezone that is +10:00
• after adjusting the time zone, adjust the clock so it shows the correct time

"Why doesn't Anki let me ignore the error?"

If you study while the clock is incorrect, then your progress is likely to be messed up when any of the following happen:

• the clock is automatically reset to the correct time in an OS upgrade
• you decide to start using AnkiWeb for backups or deck sharing
• you decide to start studying on multiple devices
• you move to a new machine after the old one breaks
• you manually change the time because other apps also notice the clock is wrong

Anki refuses to start up because an incorrect clock will also cause issues like file modification times to be wrong, and it's better to address the issue than hide it away and risk issues in the future.

Changing the font

Anki

• To change the font you see when reviewing, please see here.
• To change the font you see when adding or editing, please click the "Fields" button.
• To change the font in rows of cards in the browser, please click the "Cards" button, then "More", and then "Browser Appearance".
• For buttons, menus and so on, Anki uses your system font settings, so you can alter the size by adjusting the system font scale. If you wish to override the font only in Anki, you can install the Change Interface Font add-on.

AnkiMobile

• Any changes you make to your card templates will be reflected when studying in AnkiMobile.
• You can also tap on the blue cog while reviewing to adjust the font scaling relative to the computer version.

Changing the interface language

By default, Anki displays interface text such as menus and dialog boxes in the language you selected when you ran Anki for the first time. If you selected wrong or want to use multiple languages, you can change the language in Anki's preferences screen (ctrl+p on Windows/Linux, cmd+, on OS X). After selecting a new language, restart Anki for the new language to take effect.

If you've just started using Anki, after restarting, use File>Switch Profile to create a new profile that will use the language you've selected - otherwise things like field names will be in the previous language.

My antivirus program says Anki is infected!

Antivirus programs sometimes get things wrong. This is especially so when we release a new version - some AV programs assume that because the new version has not been seen in the past that it must be dangerous. We are careful about security, and the chances of a virus making it into an Anki release are very slim. If you've received a message from your antivirus, please contact your AV vendor to let them know about the false positive.

Running from Python

If you experience startup problems or crashes with the packaged builds of Anki that you are unable to resolve, you can try running directly via Python as a last resort.

The instructions below are provided for Windows users, as these problems seem most prevalent on Windows, but a similar approach can be taken on other platforms too.

1. Install https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.13/python-3.9.13-amd64.exe. Customize the install location, and choose c:\python
2. Open the Start menu, and open a Command Prompt.
3. Type in the following and hit enter:

\python\python -m venv \anki-venv

4. And then the following, which will take a while:

\anki-venv\scripts\pip install aqt orjson pyqt6-webengine

5. Finally:

\anki-venv\scripts\anki

If that solves your problem, you can start Anki again in the future by repeating steps 2 and 5.

If you still experience problems, you can try changing the Qt version:

\anki-venv\scripts\pip install pyqt5==5.15 pyqtwebengine==5.15.0

If that does not help either, and you have already followed all the steps on when problems occur, then you may unfortunately be out of luck.

Screenshots large and blurry on retina displays

If you edit a card, click on Cards, and then place the following at the very bottom of the styling section, it will shrink screenshots down to the correct size:

img[src*="Screen"] {
  zoom: 50%;
}

It works by targeting any filenames that have "Screen" in them - which applies to the default "Screen Shot" name that macOS uses. If your screenshots use a different but consistent name, you can adjust the line above.

If your screenshots use names that don't have a consistent pattern, you can remove the square brackets and the text inside them, which will cause all images to be matched. Images from high resolution displays will now look correct, but images you obtain from other sources may now look too small. Unfortunately there is no good solution to this problem at the moment - the web technologies Anki uses do not have a way of detecting which images need to be resized. Resizing the images prior to adding them to Anki will allow you to mix and match other images, but it requires some setup: https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-get-my-retina-Mac-to-not-take-screenshots-that-are-too-big

Requesting a refund for AnkiMobile

If you're having a problem with AnkiMobile, please let us know and we'll do our best to help you resolve it.

The App Store is run by Apple. When you purchase an app on it, you pay money to Apple. They keep part of your money, and send the remainder to us about a month later. They do not tell us who has purchased the app, and do not give us any ability to confirm you've made a purchase, or to initiate a refund. For this reason, any refund requests need to be made to Apple directly.

Please note that except when required by law, refunds are at Apple's discretion. If it's your first time requesting a refund, there's a good chance they'll refund your money, but this is not guaranteed.

Please see the following page for more information:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/118223

We have heard reports that some Apple Support representatives, when refusing a refund, are suggesting you contact us instead. That is misleading, as they know we do not have access to your payment details, and cannot confirm you've purchased the app, or remove your access to it. If Apple have refused to refund you, unfortunately that is not something we can change.

Retrieving AnkiMobile crash logs

Crash logs help us identify what's going wrong when AnkiMobile crashes. To share your crash logs, please:

• Go to the Settings app on the home screen, and tap on 'Privacy'
• Then tap on 'Analytics Data'
• Scroll down until you find 'anki' - there should be a report for each crash.
• Tap on the latest 'anki' one.
• Tap the share icon and mail the report to yourself
• Grab the file from your email, and attach it to a support ticket here

Why does AnkiMobile cost more than a typical mobile app?

AnkiMobile is not a standalone app - it is intended to be used in conjunction with the online synchronization service and open source computer version that I've made available for free for the last 10 years. Working on these three platforms is a full time job, and AnkiMobile is my way of putting food on the table and supporting future development.

Because there are so many $1 apps out there, some people are surprised by the price. But when you factor in the computer version, synchronization service, and free updates, AnkiMobile's price is quite competitive. At the time of writing (2013-10-04), SuperMemo's computer+iPhone version will set you back $60, and MentalCase's combo will cost you $29.95.

Whether you find AnkiMobile's price to be a good deal will ultimately depend on your needs. If you're an existing Anki user that has invested many hours studying on the computer, AnkiMobile provides an easy way to do your studies anywhere while taking advantage of the advanced scheduling and formatting features that Anki provides. On the other hand, if you're looking for something inexpensive and simple and don't mind being restricted to your Apple device, there are cheaper alternatives out there that you may want to consider.

One other thing to note is that once purchased, you can use AnkiMobile on up to 5 of your iOS devices, provided they use the same Apple ID. AnkiMobile also supports family sharing, for families that have that set up.

Some frequently asked questions:

"You'd make more money if you priced it cheaper."

I have experimented with different price points in the past, and reducing the price resulted in a net decrease in income. Games like Angry Birds are able to make a profit because they appeal to a wide audience. Spaced repetition flashcard apps are quite a niche market in comparison. For this reason, neither a price change nor a sale is likely in the foreseeable future.

"It's too expensive in my country."

I appreciate that costs of living are different in different countries, but I'm afraid it's not practical to vary the price depending on where you live. The costs of building and supporting Anki are fixed, and they don't vary based on the country a person using Anki lives in.

As for why the price might not be exactly the same as $25 USD, please note that Apple sets the price in each country based on the local taxes and costs of doing business there. Please also bear in mind that the price in the US is the price before state sales taxes are applied, so the difference may not be as as much as you think.

"As a student, I think it's too expensive."

Please compare it to the price of the average textbook and then consider how many hours of use you get out of each. If you don't use Anki enough to justify the price, then you're welcome to use AnkiWeb instead or look into cheaper alternatives.

"Can I get a free copy for personal use, or for writing a review?"

Sorry, I do not offer promo codes, as preparing them takes time away from development.

"You should just rely on donations."

Unfortunately that would not be enough to live on. No matter how much people appreciate a product or service, if they're given the option of not paying, most people will choose not to.

"You should charge for AnkiWeb instead."

Apple's app store provides a safe and friction-free way of making purchases. Purchasing a subscription from a website requires considerably more effort, and many people are wary of making purchases online.

"Why is the Android version free?"

The Android version is developed by a different group of people, who based it off the computer version I wrote. Because they have day jobs and can only work on it in their free time, AnkiMobile is better supported: no questions or bug reports go unanswered, the app is more polished, and most bugs get fixed quickly.

Anki knockoffs

AnkiApp and Anki Pro were developed by separate groups of people, and they are not related to the rest of the Anki ecosystem. They were released years after Anki was already established in the marketplace, and we suspect the names were deliberately chosen to take advantage of the brand recognition we have built up. Using Anki in the name implies that they will function with the other Anki clients, which they do not.

If you have downloaded AnkiApp or Anki Pro in error, please consider leaving a review on the app store alerting people to the fact that they are not the real Anki.

If you purchased a subscription from them, you could try contacting Apple to see if they can refund your money.

The Anki ecosystem is made up of Anki, AnkiMobile, AnkiDroid, and AnkiWeb, all of which are linked from our official website: https://apps.ankiweb.net

Importing from AnkiApp/Anki Pro

Abdo has kindly published an add-on to help you import your AnkiApp and Anki Pro decks into Anki.

AnkiApp is not part of the Anki ecosystem

Please see Anki knockoffs.

AnkiDroid has a separate support site

AnkiDroid is developed by a separate group of people, and has its own support site. Please see this page:

https://ankidroid.org/docs/help.html

AnkiUniversal is not supported here

AnkiUniversal is by a separate group of developers and is not fully compatible with the rest of the Anki ecosystem - it does not support things like syncing of media, creating LaTeX images, and so on.

You may wish to consider using the official Anki version from https://apps.ankiweb.net instead.

If you wish to continue using AnkiUniversal, please direct any questions you have to the AnkiUniversal authors: ankiuniversal@gmail.com

We do not make robots

We make a flashcard program called Anki. If you are having problems with a robot you bought from a company called Anki, please go to https://support.digitaldreamlabs.com/

Anki 2.0 support has ended

Anki

Update 1 Jun 2020: An upstream SSL certificate has expired, and this has broken syncing for the remaining users on 2.0.

On Feb 1 2020, AnkiWeb received a security update that broke syncing for some Anki 2.0 users. The tools Anki 2.0 was built on are no longer receiving bugfixes or security updates, and there is a risk that Anki 2.0 will stop working without warning. For this reason, we highly recommend you start migrating to Anki 2.1.

Syncing with Anki 2.1.x will continue to function. If you have not updated to Anki 2.1.x yet, upgrading is as simple as installing it on your computer, as Anki 2.0.x and 2.1.x use the same file format. You can even switch back and forth if you install 2.0 and 2.1 in separate locations - though please make sure to use the Downgrade button if you're using the latest Anki.

For information on the changes in Anki 2.1, please see https://changes.ankiweb.net/changes/2.1.html

You can download Anki 2.1 from https://apps.ankiweb.net

AnkiDroid

This change will affect devices running Android 4.4 or below. There is a beta build of AnkiDroid available that should fix syncing on devices running 4.1+: https://groups.google.com/g/anki-android/c/f9ikzWikjjk

AnkiMobile

Any iOS version from 5 onwards should be fine.

Anki 2.0 add-ons

Due to the libraries Anki 2.0 uses no longer being supported, Anki 2.0 has been discontinued, and may stop working in a future OS update. Please consider updating to Anki 2.1 instead.

If the add-on you want has a 2.0 download link on AnkiWeb, you can download the add-on's .py or .zip file.

• If it's a .py file, place it in your add-on folder.
• If it's a .zip file, unzip the contents into your add-on folder.

Your add-on folder is inside your data folder: https://docs.ankiweb.net/files.html#file-locations

An archive of the old 2.0 add-ons has also been made available. To use it:

• Download the add-on archive from https://apps.ankiweb.net/downloads/archive/addons-2.0.zip
• Extract the zip.
• Search through the README file to locate the add-on ID you want.
• If it's a .py file, place it in your add-on folder.
• If it's a .zip file, unzip the contents into your add-on folder.

Your add-on folder is inside your data folder: https://docs.ankiweb.net/files.html#file-locations

These add-ons are provided as-is, and no support can be provided for them.

Can I use Anki in a company or school?

The following is provided for your convenience. For the exact terms of the computer version license, please read the LICENSE file distributed in the Anki source package.

You are free to use the computer version of Anki in a school or company. As per the terms of the license, if you modify Anki, you must make your modifications publicly available.

A copy of AnkiMobile must be purchased for each user who wants to use it. Volume licensing is available for academic institutions.

Sharing Decks

The cards you create with Anki are your own, so you are free to license them as you please, and sell them if you wish. Anki does not include any DRM features to prevent users from sharing decks, as its open-source nature means any such protections could be bypassed easily. If your decks turn up on the Internet in violation of your copyright, you are of course free to send takedown notices. If you find your copyrighted content has been uploaded on AnkiWeb's list of shared decks, please let us know and we will remove it as soon as possible.

Custom Versions

We do not have the resources to create custom versions of Anki, AnkiMobile, or AnkiWeb at this time, whether to add DRM or other features. You are free to modify the desktop version of Anki yourself in accordance with the license.

AnkiWeb

AnkiWeb is intended for individual users. People in a school or company are welcome to sign up for their own accounts, but teachers or company staff should not create accounts in bulk for people. AnkiWeb does not currently provide any means of monitoring activity on students' accounts.

Because AnkiWeb is a free service targeted at end users, we do not have the resources to sign data processing agreements and similar documents with schools or companies. If you require such documents, alternative products like Quizlet may be better able to accomodate you.

AnkiWeb's privacy policy can be found here: https://ankiweb.net/account/privacy

How can I donate / contribute?

As Anki is run as a business, it is difficult to accept donations. Instead, we make available AnkiMobile to raise funds for development. You can purchase AnkiMobile on your Apple mobile device, and the proceeds from it go towards supporting Anki's development.

From time to time, people request other ways to contribute, such as by making donations via a site like Patreon, or via something like BitCoin. These would take time to set up and maintain, as we need to ensure no laws are being broken, and relevant taxes are being paid. At the moment we feel that the time is better spent working on Anki instead.

If you're unable to purchase the app for yourself or a friend, there are still other ways you can contribute. Answering questions over on the user forums is a big help, as every question the developers don't need to answer means more time that can be spent working on Anki. And if you don't feel comfortable answering questions, telling your friends about Anki helps out too.