Preferences

The preferences are available from the Tools menu on Windows/Linux, or the Anki menu on a Mac.

Appearance

General

Language
Change your display language. You can help to improve translations here

User Interface

Theme
Dark (night) mode will make Anki's interface dark, and will cause cards to be shown as white text on a black background. Some card templates may need to be modified to work properly with this option enabled - please see night mode styling for more information.

From 2.1.50+ there is an option to switch to day or night mode automatically.

User interface size
If you find that the interface elements are too small for you, you can try to increase this setting.

Reset Windows Sizes
This will reset all windows sizes and locations to the default settings.

Video driver
Anki's libraries need a video driver to draw content on the screen. Due to different hardware and software configurations, the driver that works best on your machine may vary. ANGLE and OpenGL will perform better than the software option, but they may not function correctly on some systems. On Macs, you will almost always want to use the OpenGL option.

Note: If you're using 2.1.50+ (Qt6), please, check this page.

Distractions

These options allow you to remove some unnecessary elements from the screen during reviews. You can:

  • Hide the top and bottom bar during reviews.
  • Enable the "minimalist" mode, making the interface more compact/less fancy.
  • Reduce motion, to disable some transitions/animations.
  • Switching between native styling and the Anki theme (only on Mac/Linux).

Review

Scheduler

v3 Scheduler
Using the Anki v3 scheduler is recommended if you don't use AnkiDroid. It's documented here:
https://faqs.ankiweb.net/the-2021-scheduler.html

Show learning cards with larger steps before
Only shown when the 2.1 scheduler is enabled. Normally learning cards with a 1+ day delay are shown after normal reviews. If checked, Anki will show them before normal reviews instead.

Legacy timezone handling
Please see here: https://faqs.ankiweb.net/timezone-handling-changes.html

Next day starts at
Controls when Anki should start showing the next day’s cards. The default setting of 4AM ensures that if you’re studying around midnight, you won’t have two days' worth of cards shown to you in one session. If you stay up very late or wake up very early, you may want to adjust this to a time you’re usually sleeping. Note that the start of the next day is relative to your current timezone. Also note that any cards that cross a day boundary will appear at the start of the day they are scheduled for, just like review cards do.

Learn ahead limit
Tells Anki how to behave when there is nothing left to study in the current deck but cards in learning. The default setting of 20 minutes tells Anki that cards should be shown early if they have a delay of less than 20 minutes and there’s nothing else to do. If you set this to 0, Anki will always wait the full delay, showing the congratulations screen until the remaining cards are ready to be reviewed.

Timebox time limit
Timeboxing is a technique to help you focus by dividing a longer activity (such as a 30 minute study session) into smaller blocks. If you set the timebox time limit to a non-zero number of minutes, Anki will periodically show you how many cards you’ve managed to study during the prescribed time limit.

Mix new cards and reviews: Only shown when the v1/v2 schedulers are enabled. This drop-down box controls when new cards are shown: either mixed with, before, or after all reviews.

Review

Show play buttons on cards with audio
Whether a clickable (re)play button will be shown in the review screen for cards with audio.

Interrupt current audio when answering
Whether a currently playing audio file should be stopped when answering a card.

Show remaining card count
Disable this option to hide the card count at the bottom of the screen.

Show next review time above answer buttons
Useful to know how far in the future your cards are being pushed.

Editing

Editing

Paste clipboard images as PNG
By default Anki pastes images on the clipboard as JPG files, to save disk space. You can use the option to paste as PNG images instead. PNG images support transparent backgrounds and are lossless, but they usually result in much larger file sizes.

Paste without Shift strips formatting
By default, formatting like bold and colors are kept when pasting, unless the Shift key is held down. This option reverses the behaviour.

Default deck
Controls how note types and decks interact. The default of "When adding, default to current deck" means that Anki saves the last-used note type for each deck and selects it again then next time you choose the deck (and, in addition, will start with the current deck selected when choosing Add from anywhere). The other option, "Change deck depending on note type," saves the last-used deck for each note type (and opens the add window to the last-used note type when you choose Add). This may be more convenient if you always use a single note type for each deck.

The last used deck/notetype is updated when you add a card. If you change the deck and close the add window without adding a card, it won't be saved.

Browsing

Default search text
Allows you to customize the starting search text in the browser (eg, to start with "deck:current").

Ignore accents in search (slower)
When enabled, simple text searches automatically ignore accents.

Import/Export

Legacy import/export handling
If enabled, legacy (pre 2.1.55) import / export code will be used. It is recommended to deactivate this option.

Syncing

This tab contains options related to syncing with AnkiWeb.

Synchronisation

Synchronize audio and images too
When enabled, media will also be synced with AnkiWeb.

Automatically sync on profile open/close
Disable this if you don't want an automatic sync with AnkiWeb when opening / closing a profile.

Periodically sync media

On next sync, force changes on one direction
When this option is enabled, the next sync will ask you whether you wish to upload or download. This is useful if you have made some changes accidentally, and wish to overwrite them with an older version that is on AnkiWeb.

AnkiWeb Account

When logged in, clicking on Log Out will log you out.

Self-hosted Sync Server

For info on the custom sync server option, see this section.

Backups

Please see this section of the manual.