Help cleaning up duplicate AnKing MCAT decks (old + new AnkiHub versions mixed)

[allefav]

Hi! I’m having a complicated issue with duplicate AnKing MCAT decks across two devices and I’m really scared of messing something up before my MCAT. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Background

• Last year before my MCAT, I used the AnKing MCAT deck with AnkiHub.

• This year I started studying again. I had initially resubscribed to the AnKing MCAT deck again but I forgot to reinstall the AnkiHub add‑on on my PC. I had forgotten the proper downloading process at that point, so I had just begun studying again, utilizing the same deck from last year. The deck had been reset and entirely suspended after my first MCAT attempt, and upon beginning studying again, I would go ahead and unsuspend any relevant chapters I needed to study each day. I began studying with this deck again on May 3rd 2026 - so it’s been some time of using that deck.

• Last night I was using Anki on my laptop instead of my PC for the first time in my current prep. I assume the AnkiHub add on was still installed there, because when I had gone to sync my progress from my PC, I recieved a message regarding getting back the add-on and then restarting my Anki to apply the changes. I did so.

• On the laptop, the deck downloaded/updated, and after syncing, my PC and laptop now has multiple copies of the MCAT subdecks (Behavioral, Biochem, Orgo, etc.).

What I see now

On my PC (main device):

• This is what I see:

  
  • There are duplicates of each topic. One of each duplicate contains my current progress. For example, the behavioural deck with 49 learning and 87 dues aligns with my recent progress. The 42 news - I am assuming - comes from new cards which were updated to the deck within the last year (I did not have any new cards remaining in that deck the last time I studied it)
  • Other decks, however, like organic chemistry, I genuinely cannot dictate which is old and which is new. It seems like the orgo deck with 27 news, 48 learning, 80 due. But then I cannot make sense of the other 21 learning, 24 dues in the duplicate deck.
  • Please Note: I was not using this deck for the following topics since restarting my prep: Biology, Biochemistry, Gen-Chem

• In the browser, I can also see the following format for some topics:

  • A Milesdown-Behaviour tag/deck that’s missing a bunch of cards, but also has a few cards with my edits from last year

  • A Milesdown_Behaviour one that has all the cards I’ve actually been studying.

  • 

So I think:

• One tree is my old deck (from last year) with this year’s progress added.

• The other is the fresh AnkiHub subscription deck that downloaded on the laptop and synced back.

• In some subjects (e.g. Orgo) they both have some progress, which makes me scared to delete anything.

What I want

• To end up with one clean, current AnKing MCAT deck:

  • Properly linked to AnkiHub on both PC and laptop.

  • With as much of my current progress as possible preserved (especially this year’s work)

What I’ve done so far

• I have made full collection backups on my PC via
  File → Export → Anki Collection Package (.colpkg) with scheduling included.

• I can provide screenshots of my deck tree and browser views (showing the duplicates) and can share a backup privately if needed.

I am unsure if the best course of action would be to just merge subtopics of the same type with one another to give rise to something like:

• 
• Similar topics are just grouped within the same deck
• My only concern with this would be trying to determine where to go about unsuspension of relevant cards when I am ready to study them

At this point, I would truly appreciate any help which can be provided to ensure my progress is maintained, while still being able to get use of the new cards before my MCAT approaches.

I thank you so much for any help that can be provided!

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Found 0 results for ‘tags:official duplicate AnKing MCAT deck old new AnkiHub versions mixed Milesdown_Behaviour category: Support order:latest_topic max_posts:20 tags:deck-anking-mcat+deck-ankingmed status:open’

You’re right to pause here before changing anything—this is fixable, and your backups were the perfect first step.

Because this involves your personal collection, I can’t safely tell you “just delete X deck.” Instead, here’s a conservative, step‑by‑step plan to (1) protect your work, (2) identify which deck tree is “old vs new,” and (3) consolidate into a single AnkiHub‑linked MCAT deck.

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0. Safety first (do this on your main device)

1. Confirm you have at least two backups stored outside Anki:

   • Your .colpkg from File → Export → Anki Collection Package (*.colpkg) with scheduling.
   • An automatic backup from File → Switch Profile → [your profile] → Open backup… (just check that recent ones exist).

2. Temporarily stop syncing AnkiHub & AnkiWeb until things are clean:

   • In AnkiHub: consider turning off auto‑sync for the MCAT deck (or at least don’t click “Update from AnkiHub” for now).
   • In Anki: avoid syncing to AnkiWeb until the end.

All the following steps should be done on one device only (I recommend the PC), and when you’re finished, you’ll sync that “good” state to the laptop.

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1. Identify which tree is which

From your screenshots, it looks like:

• One tree is MCAT → [Behavioral, Biology, …]
• Another is MCAT → MileDown’s MCAT Decks → [Behavioral, …]
• In the browser you see both Miledown-Behaviour and Miledown_Behaviour tags.

These are strong signs of two separate deck/tag sets:

• The old local deck (from last year) – partly edited, not necessarily mapped cleanly to current AnkiHub notes.
• The current AnkiHub subscription deck – correctly tagged with #AK_MCAT_v2 and the standardized Miledown_Behavioral tags.

How to confirm

On your PC:

1. Pick one subdeck where you know the truth, e.g. Behavioral:
   • In the Decks screen, Right‑click → Options on each Behavioral deck.
   • Note which one:
     • Has more cards.
     • Has newer card creation dates in the Browser.
2. In the Browser, search:
   • tag:#AK_MCAT_v2 Miledown_Behavioral
   • tag:#AK_MCAT_v2 Miledown-Behavioral
     and compare counts:
   • Whichever combination matches the official AnKing MCAT update tags (under #AK_MCAT_v2) is almost certainly the AnkiHub deck.
   • The one with missing cards / older tags is more likely the old deck.

Write down for each subject (Behavioral, Orgo, etc.) which deck is:

• “Old local”
• “Official AnkiHub”

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2. Preserve your current progress into the official AnkiHub deck

Goal: end up using only the official AnkiHub version, but keep as much of your learning history as possible.

2.1. For subjects you haven’t touched this year (Bio, Biochem, Gen Chem)

Since you said you haven’t used these during this attempt:

1. In the Decks screen:
   • For each of those “old” subdecks (Bio, Biochem, Gen Chem), confirm there are no recent reviews:
     • Browser → Search: deck:"Old Deck Name" rated:2026-05-03-
   • If zero results or only very old, you can safely:
     • Move or delete these later once everything else is stable. For now, you can suspend all cards in them:
       • Browser → Search that deck → Ctrl+A → Suspend (or Toggle Suspend).

This keeps them from interfering but doesn’t destroy anything.

2.2. For subjects you have been using (Behavioral, Orgo, etc.)

There are two types of cards to consider:

1. Cards that exist in both old and new decks (true duplicates).
2. Cards that only exist in one deck (newly added content).

You mainly care about preserving:

• reps, ease, and intervals on the cards you’ve been doing this year.

Because actual “merging” of scheduling across different note IDs is messy and risky to do manually, the safest practical approach is:

Option A: Switch to official AnkiHub copies, keep old decks as an archive

1. For each “old” Behavioral/Orgo deck:

   • Browser → Search: deck:"Old Behavioral" and sort by Latest Review.
   • If the majority of recent 2026 reviews are on the old deck, note that down.

2. Clone the scheduling into the AnkiHub deck for the most‑used subjects:
   For each relevant tag (e.g. Miledown-Behavioral vs Miledown_Behavioral):

   • Use Anki’s “Change Deck” to temporarily move the old cards into the corresponding AnkiHub subdeck, so you’re reviewing through the AnkiHub deck from now on.
   • This way, their note IDs stay as‑is, but they live under the AnkiHub deck tree.

   Concretely (example Behavioral):

   • Browser → deck:"Old Behavioral deck name" → Ctrl+A.
   • Change Deck → select the Behavioral subdeck under the MCAT AnkiHub tree.
   • Do not delete tags; we only care about deck location for reviews.

3. After moving, you will have:

   • The AnkiHub Behavioral deck containing:
     • Cards that originally came from the AnkiHub subscription (correctly tagged).
     • Cards that were in the old Behavioral deck but have your progress.
   • Some true duplicates may exist (e.g. two notes with the same content). That’s ugly but not catastrophic; the key is that from today onward, you’re only reviewing from the unified AnkiHub subdeck.

4. Once you’ve moved all “old” learning cards for that subject into the AnkiHub subdeck:

   • The remaining “old” deck tree can be:
     • Emptied (no cards assigned).
     • Or left with only suspended/archive cards.

5. Repeat this per subject (Behavioral, Orgo, Physics/Math).

This doesn’t give you a mathematically perfect deduplication but keeps your progress and simplifies daily use quickly.

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3. Clean up deck tree without losing anything

After step 2, you should have:

• A single main deck tree: MCAT → [Behavioral, Biochem, …] (the AnkiHub one).
• Old trees with zero or only suspended/archive cards.

Then:

1. Suspend everything in remaining old duplication decks:
   • Browser → deck:"Old X" → Ctrl+A → Suspend.
2. Optionally move them into an archive deck, e.g. MCAT (ARCHIVE):
   • So they don’t clutter the main decks screen, but are still safe.

Do not delete them until after your MCAT (or until you have several backups and are 100% confident).

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4. Re‑link clean deck to AnkiHub & other device

When the PC looks good:

1. Run a full AnkiHub sync for the MCAT deck on the PC.
2. Then do a one‑way AnkiWeb sync:
   • On the PC: Sync → choose “Upload to AnkiWeb” when asked.
3. On the laptop:
   • Sync Anki with AnkiWeb and choose “Download from AnkiWeb.”
   • Open AnkiHub on the laptop and let it resync the MCAT deck.

Your laptop should now mirror the cleaned‑up structure from your PC.

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5. What I can help you with next in that topic

Because this is nuanced, I strongly recommend:

1. Post 2–3 close‑up screenshots in your topic:
   • Full deck list on the PC, expanded down through MCAT → subdecks.
   • Browser view for one subject (e.g. Behavioral) with each deck highlighted and the tag pane visible.
2. If you’re comfortable, mention approximately:
   • How many reviews you’ve done this year in a “problem” subdeck (e.g. Orgo).

In your thread, I can then:

• Tell you specifically “this exact Behavioral deck tree is the one to keep” and
• Guide you through the exact Browser searches and “Change Deck” operations for each problematic subdeck, step by step.

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Summary

• You did the right thing making full .colpkg backups.
• Don’t delete anything yet; instead:
  • Identify which tree is the AnkiHub deck.
  • Move your in‑progress cards from old subdecks into the AnkiHub subdecks via the Browser.
  • Suspend/archive the leftover old trees.
• Once clean on one device, sync that state to the other.

Reply in your topic with those closer screenshots and I’ll walk you through the precise searches and moves for Behavioral and Orgo so you can get back to studying with minimal disruption before your exam.

[Brian_BH]

Hello,

I would be happy to help.

As you’ve made a backup already, there’s no worry about being able to preserve your progress; that will be ensured either way so rest easy there.

What sounds like may have happened is that you hadn’t updated the deck in some time, and so the discrepancy caused some updates to insert themselves elsewhere. But, ultimately not a huge issue and easy enough to fix. A few things:

First, I would start on whichever computer has the AnkiHub add-on installed:

Go to your top menu bar: AnkiHub - Deck Management, click on the AnKing MCAT deck, and confirm the deck location that you’d like. Mine will look different than yours, but as an example:

This will tell AnkiHub, as a confirmation, which deck you’d like to be the stated location. Which should prevent any duplications in the future.

From there, you may have some cards scattered around various deck locations but no ultimate harm there. As far as deck location you can move the cards where you’d like, and delete any empty decks. This tutorial walks you through how to move cards into new subdecks: How to move AnKing cards to their own deck

While that tutorial uses the AnKing Step deck as an example, the same thing would be true here. You can use the AnKing MCAT tags to move the cards where you’d like, and should take just a few minutes or so

It may be worth pointing out that no matter where the cards are located, the tags will still be preserved. So you can always find, suspend/unsuspend, and prepare cards in an organized fashion regardless of where they’re located.

Just so this post isn’t too long I would start there, let me know how you fare, and we can do our best to make sure you’re all squared away.