By the tiswa editorial team, from the official sources listed at the end of this guide. How we write our guides
This Anki guide is for students who keep hearing about Anki from medical students or language learners. Anki is a flashcard program: you write a question on one side and the answer on the other, and Anki shows you each card at calculated times. Cards you remember easily come back after longer gaps; cards you forget come back soon. It is a direct way to combine spaced repetition with active recall.
This guide explains Anki from scratch, based on its official website and manual: where to get it, the difference between cards, notes and decks, the note types, how to use the four answer buttons, and how to sync between devices. At the end you will find tips for writing cards that actually help.
Where to get Anki, and is it free?
According to the official site, apps.ankiweb.net, these are the official versions:
| Device | App | What the official site says |
|---|---|---|
| Computer: Windows, Mac, Linux | Anki | The free computer version is available for all major platforms |
| Android | AnkiDroid | Free and developed by contributors; donations help fund it |
| iPhone and iPad | AnkiMobile | The official iOS app; all purchases help fund Anki's development |
| Browser | AnkiWeb | A free service for syncing and studying online |
Key ideas in Anki
The official Anki manual separates three things, and understanding them saves a lot of confusion:
- A card: a question and answer pair, like a paper flashcard, except the question stays visible when the answer is shown.
- A note: the information itself, split into fields such as "word" and "meaning". One note can produce several cards, for example word-to-meaning and meaning-to-word.
- A deck: a group of cards with its own settings. You can nest decks with a double colon, such as "Anatomy::Upper limb".
Note types
When you add a new note, you pick its type. The main ones in the official manual are:
- Basic: a front and a back, making one card. Fine for most questions.
- Basic (and reversed card): makes two cards, front to back and back to front. Good for terms and foreign words.
- Cloze: hides part of a sentence for you to fill in. Excellent for definitions and key sentences from lectures.
- Image Occlusion: hides parts of an image, such as labels on an anatomy diagram, so you can test yourself on them.
Your first deck, step by step
- Create a deck for the course
On the main screen of the desktop version, create a deck named after the course. You can add a sub-deck for each chapter.
- Add a note
Click Add, choose the note type and deck, then type the question in the front field and the answer in the back.
- Keep cards short
One question and one fact per card. Short cards are easier to grade and faster to review.
- Start reviewing
Select the deck and click Study Now. Think of the answer, then press Space or Enter to show it.
- Grade yourself honestly
Pick one of the four buttons based on how well you remembered, and Anki schedules the card's next appearance.
- Review every day
Open Anki daily, even for a few minutes. Its strength is consistency, not long irregular sessions.
The four answer buttons: when to use each
After you reveal the answer, Anki shows four buttons. The official manual explains them like this:
| Button | Shortcut | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Again | 1 | Your answer was wrong or you could not recall it. Be strict here |
| Hard | 2 | You got it right but with doubts or after a long time |
| Good | 3, Space or Enter | You got it right with some effort. This should be your most common button |
| Easy | 4 | You got it right with no mental effort |
The manual says Good should be your choice most of the time, with Again used far less often. If you find yourself pressing Again on half your cards, your cards are probably too long or hard, or you are adding new cards faster than you can review them.
Over time a card moves through states: new, learning, then review. According to the manual, a card is called "mature" once its review interval reaches 21 days or more. A card you forget during review goes back into relearning.
Syncing between computer and phone
The official manual describes AnkiWeb as a free service that syncs your cards across devices. Create a free account, then in the desktop version click the sync button at the top or press Y, and sign in. On the first sync, choose Upload if your cards are on the computer and the account is empty, or Download if it is the other way round. After that, Anki merges changes automatically. The manual notes that data in accounts unused for six months may be deleted.
A prompt that turns notes into Anki cards
Writing cards takes time. This prompt prepares them one card per line, ready to check before importing:
These are my notes from the lecture [title] in [course name]: [paste your notes] Turn them into Anki cards using only my notes, without adding information. Card rules: - one fact per card - a short, clear question - an answer of no more than one sentence Write each card on one line in this format: question;answer
Save the result in a text file, then import it from the import menu in the desktop version. Check every card before you rely on it and delete anything that does not match your lecturer's explanation.
Tips for cards that help
- Understand before you memorise: Anki is great for locking in what you understand, not for learning a new topic.
- Write your own cards where you can: shared decks can help, but writing a card is itself studying.
- Do not add more cards than you can review: a hundred new cards a day snowball into hundreds of reviews.
- Use Cloze for long definitions: hide only the keyword instead of memorising the whole definition.
- Add an image when it helps: in courses like anatomy, an image with Image Occlusion beats a description.
To understand the science behind Anki, read our guide to active recall and spaced repetition. To compare it with other apps, see our study apps pick, and browse all our study guides.
