How to bulk-move Anking deck, and still keep their organization?

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1

Maybe this is asked already, but I am wondering what’s an efficient way to bulk-move all the Anking deck, and still keep their organization?

For example, right now if I want to move something under First aid – Cardiovascular – vasculitis—….etc. I gotta select those few cards under that subdeck, and then create a new deck in my own end by typing “FirstAid::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP”. This is just an example.

There are just too many subdecks, and I am wondering if there is any way to do these things easily.

2
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You don’t need to recreate all those subdecks manually; the browser + tags/fields will be much faster and more flexible than deck-by-deck moving.

Here are two main approaches, depending on what you’re actually trying to do:

1. If you just want to organize what you study (recommended)

Instead of physically moving cards into tons of small personal subdecks, use:

  • Tags (or fields) to represent:
    • First Aid
    • Subject (Cardio / Path / etc.)
    • Specific topic (Vasculitis / TTP / etc.)
  • Filtered decks or searches in the Browser when you want to study a subset (e.g. First Aid Cardio Vasculitis).

Why this is better with AnkiHub/AnKing:

  • The AnKing decks are already heavily tagged (e.g. First Aid, B&B, Pathoma, etc.).
  • If you move cards into many custom subdecks, it becomes **harder to:
    • Keep in sync with AnkiHub updates
    • Troubleshoot / follow official instructions
  • With tags + one main AnKing deck, you keep:
    • Proper scheduling
    • Simple syncing with AnkiHub
    • Flexibility to create temporary filtered decks when you need a focused review.

Workflow example:

  1. In the Browser, search something like:
    "First Aid" Cardiology
    or use the existing FA/B&B tags.
  2. Tag those results with something like:
    • FirstAid::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP
  3. When you need to study that group:
    • Either use a search in the Browser + “Preview” or
    • Create a Filtered Deck from that search.

This gives you effectively the “subdeck” organization without physically splitting the deck tree.

2. If you really do want to bulk-move while keeping structure

Anki has no one-click “clone this whole subdeck tree under my own deck” feature, but you can speed things up:

A. Move by searching instead of by subdeck

  1. Open Browse.
  2. In the left panel, click the deck/subdeck you’re interested in (e.g. the AnKing FA cardio vasculitis deck).
  3. Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select all cards.
  4. At the bottom, change the Deck dropdown to your target deck
    (you can create your own deck first, e.g. MyFirstAid::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP).
  5. Repeat for the other subdecks you care about.

Still manual, but way faster than selecting a few cards at a time while studying.

B. Use tags instead of deep subdeck trees

A common compromise:

  • Keep cards in a single (or a few) AnKing decks.
  • Add your own tag tree like:
    • MyFA::Cardiovascular::Vasculitis
    • MyFA::Cardiovascular::TTP
  • When you outgrow a tag, you can later move those tagged cards into a separate deck in one batch:
    1. Search tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular::Vasculitis
    2. Ctrl+A / Cmd+A
    3. Change deck in bulk.

AnkiHub-specific note

For AnkiHub/AnKing:

  • It’s strongly recommended to:
    • Keep the original deck structure mostly intact.
    • Do your organization with tags, fields, and filtered decks instead.
  • Heavy deck reshuffling can:
    • Make it harder to follow official update instructions.
    • Make troubleshooting more confusing if something breaks.

If you share a concrete example of what you want your personal structure to look like (e.g. “I want all FA cardio vasculitis cards under a MyDeck::FA::Cardio::Vasculitis parent while still syncing with AnkiHub”), I can suggest a specific tagging/search workflow tailored to that.

3

I am doing the following right now, but is there a faster way?

4
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Reading: How to bulk-move Anking deck, and still keep their organization?

Nice, you’re already on the right track with tags. To turn that into a smooth, scalable workflow, here’s how I’d refine it:

1. Use a consistent personal tag schema

Since you like the FA → Cardio → Path → Vasculitis style, just formalize it:

  • MyFA::Cardiovascular
  • MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology
  • MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis
  • MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP

You don’t need every level on every card, but being consistent helps:

  • You can review all FA cardio: tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular
  • Or more specific: tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis

2. Tag in bulk from existing AnKing structure

To avoid doing this card-by-card:

  1. Open Browse.
  2. Click the relevant AnKing subdeck on the left (e.g. the vasculitis subdeck).
  3. Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select all cards.
  4. Press T (or right-click → Tags…) and add your personal tag
    e.g. MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP.
  5. Repeat for other subtopics (e.g. TTP, HUS, etc.), each with its own tag.

You’re essentially mirroring the subdeck structure with tags, but only once, and without breaking the original deck tree.

3. Study with searches or filtered decks

When you want to focus on that content:

  • In the Browser, search:
    tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP
    • Use Preview to quickly run through them, or
  • Create a Filtered Deck:
    • Tools → Create Filtered Deck
    • Search: tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP
    • Set limits and order as you like.

This gives you the “subdeck” experience with much less maintenance.

4. Later: optional bulk move to a new deck

If down the line you really want those in a separate deck:

  1. Search: tag:MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP
  2. Ctrl+A / Cmd+A
  3. At the bottom, use the Deck dropdown → create/choose
    MyFirstAid::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP

Because you tagged consistently, this becomes a one-shot move instead of repeated manual work.

If you describe your exact current tag (or subdeck) pattern for one organ system (e.g. how you’re handling all of First Aid cardio), I can suggest a concrete tag template you can apply across the rest of the deck.

5

I don’t feel this bot is really answering my question here, can someone help? OR maybe just tell me that it’s not possible.

6

You’re right to push back here—what you’re asking about is slightly different from “just use tags,” so let me answer your actual question directly.

Direct answer

If by:

bulk-move all the AnKing deck, and still keep their organization

you mean:

  • “Take the existing AnKing deck tree (all those FA → Cardio → Vasculitis subdecks)
  • and clone/move that entire structure under my own parent deck in one go”

then:

No – Anki does not have a built‑in way to bulk‑duplicate or bulk‑move an entire nested deck tree while auto‑recreating the same subdeck names for you.

Each new deck (or new deck tree) still has to be created by you at least once.

What is possible (fastest options)

Within that limitation, here are the only “faster” things Anki/AnKing really allow:

  1. Bulk-move cards from an existing subdeck to a new deck you create once

    • Browse → click the subdeck on the left
    • Ctrl+A / Cmd+A
    • Change Deck at the bottom → type/pick your new deck
    • That’s as close as it gets to “bulk” for deck moves.

  2. Mirror the structure with tags (what you’re already doing)

    • This doesn’t recreate decks, but it does let you:
      • Select an entire FA/Cardio/Vasculitis “chunk” at once
      • Later move those tagged cards in one batch to whatever deck you want.

But there is no hidden feature that says:
“Take AnKing::FA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP and automatically build me MyFA::Cardiovascular::Pathology::Vasculitis::TTP with one button.”

AnkiHub / AnKing angle

Because:

  • Heavy deck reshuffling can interfere with:
    • Following AnKing / AnkiHub update instructions
    • Troubleshooting if something breaks

the recommended practice from the AnKing / AnkiHub side really is:

  • Leave the deck tree mostly as-is
  • Use tags + filtered decks for your custom organization

So both from a “what’s technically possible in Anki” and from an “AnkiHub best practice” standpoint, there isn’t a better, more automated way to fully clone that deck structure for your own parallel deck tree.

If you want, you can paste a screenshot or text of one specific branch (e.g. exactly how your FA → Cardio decks look right now), and I can show you the least painful combo of bulk moves + tags for that exact structure—but it will still be within the limits above.

7

Hello,

The AnKing Step deck is organized by tags. By default, the AnKing Step deck doesn’t have any subdecks unless you had other versions installed before downloading the current version from AnkiHub.
The recommended setup for studying is to suspend all the cards and then unsuspend only the tags you want to study right now. In some cases, if you want to study a topic more specifically or before a test, you can create filtered decks.

Unfortunately, there is no better way than selecting all the cards from a tag and then moving them manually to a deck you created for them. Doing this for specific topics is fine, but not for every topic you want to study, because there are so many tags and it’s not really possible to organize all the tags into subdecks.

Unfortunately, that’s how Anki works, and it’s not really possible for us to make a subdeck for every topic, so we just use a tag system.
Here is a tutorial on how to study a specific tag by unsuspending the cards: How to Get Started Studying

Let me know if you need help with anything else. :blush:

8

Alright, I see. Thanks!

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