I was syncing Anki on my laptop, and it prompted me first sync on my other device (Ipad) and then install two decks (I guess updating them). I did so, and all the cards I unsuspended are there. For some reason though, all the notes I added myself (text and images) to the Extra section (sometimes Lecture Notes section) are gone. What do I do? This has never happened before, and I feel like I lost so much work.
edit: i noticed on one of the cards some of my Lecture notes text is still there but whatever i put in the Extra section is gone.
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I’m sorry to hear about your missing notes! This sounds frustrating, especially since you’ve lost work you put into customizing your cards. Let me help you understand what might have happened and how to potentially recover your notes.
First, let me search for relevant information about syncing issues that might be similar to yours:
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I’m sorry to hear about your missing notes! This sounds like a sync conflict issue between your laptop and iPad. Let me help you try to recover your work.
What likely happened
When syncing between devices, Anki sometimes encounters conflicts that can result in data loss, especially when both devices have different versions of the same cards. In your case, it sounds like the notes you added to the Extra/Lecture Notes sections weren’t properly synchronized between your devices.
Steps to try recovering your notes
Check for backups:
On your laptop, go to the Anki menu and look for “File > Switch Profile” to see if there’s an automatic backup you can restore
Anki typically creates automatic backups before significant changes
Check your AnkiWeb account:
Log into AnkiWeb directly to see if your notes appear there
If they do, you can download this version to your laptop
Try a forced one-way sync:
If you still have the notes on one device, go to “Tools > Preferences > Network”
Check “On next sync, force changes in one direction”
Sync and choose to upload from the device that still has your notes
Check your media folder:
If your notes contained images, they might still be in your media folder even if they’re not showing in the cards
Preventing this in the future
Regular backups: Export your decks regularly with scheduling and media included
Sync completely: Always let syncing finish completely before closing Anki
One device at a time: Try to make significant changes on one device, sync fully, then use other devices
If you’re still unable to recover your notes, please provide more details about:
Which version of Anki you’re using
Whether you can see any trace of your notes on either device
If you have any backups available
This will help me provide more specific guidance for your situation.
To keep your personal annotations from being overwritten, you need to protect the fields where you add them. You have two main ways to do this:
1. On the AnkiHub Website (Protects a field for all cards)
This method protects a specific field across your entire deck. It’s best for fields like “Lecture Notes,” as that field does not typically receive updates from our team. We recommend making your personal annotations there.
2. Within Anki (Protects a field for a single card)
This method protects a field on a specific card only. It is recommended for fields like “Extra,” which often receive updates. However, keep in mind that protecting this field will prevent you from receiving any future updates for that specific field on that card.
To do this, go to the Anki Browser, right-click on the desired card, select the “Protect Fields” option, choose the field you want to protect, and then click “OK.”
This may be an obvious question but if I choose to restore from an earlier backup, and considering I synced a while back until now, will some of the newer cards I unsuspended disappear?
If you restore from a backup quite a bit in the past, you will lose any changes made since that backup, yeah.
With any backup, you’re restoring your collection to exactly as it was at the point in time in which the backup was made; effectively a snapshot of your collection at that date and time.
Please let me know if that answers your question, and if there’s anything else I can help with.
Thank you both for your answers. Yes that answers my question. I followed your restoring backup tutorial. When I clicked Sync it showed a pop up asking: There is a conflict between decks on this device and AnkiWeb. You must choose which version to keep:
Select Download from AnkiWeb to replace decks here with AnkiWeb’s version. You will lose any changes you made on this device since your last sync.
Select Upload to AnkiWeb to overwrite AnkiWeb’s versions with decks from this device, and delete any changes on AnkiWeb.
As the instructions suggest, if you want to overwrite the AnkiWeb server version with your local version (you just restored from a local backup, so you want to keep your local version), select upload.
If you select download, it will replace your local decks with the server version, which would completely undo the backup restoration and replace it with the existing cloud copy of your current collection.
Hello! Ever since I did this I’m facing a new issue- I selected Upload on my PC and it worked. I then synced on my iPad and it asked the same question so I also pressed Upload. It then asked the same thing again when I synced on my PC. And then again on my iPad…its basically a cycle every time I do it on one device. It never did this before, like it normally just synced stuff.
To correctly sync your collection when this happens, the right procedure is to first click “Upload” on the device that has the version you want to keep.
In your case, you should click “Upload to AnkiWeb” on your PC first. Then, when you sync your iPad, you should choose “Download from AnkiWeb.”
This will make the collection from your PC the main version on all of your devices.
