Hi friends, I could really use your help. I have been struggling to find a way to see and work on any new cards. What is wrong, is it my settings? I’ve disabled the only add on I’ve seen that has a reputation for messing this up. If this is a super easy fix, please be nice. I’m really grateful for your help.
Hello,
I’d be happy to help.
I see the settings you shared, and I thank you for sharing those as that does make sure that I have some good information to work with. However, I think, based on your description, that I’m not entirely sure what problem it is that you’re having. 
If you can help me understand what specific issues you’re running into, though, I’m confident that we can get you squared away hopefully without too much trouble
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You’re amazing for responding so quickly, thank you so much. Sorry if I explained things poorly. So what I’m struggling with is, upon opening and being to work on the anking overhaul for step 1 and 2 deck, I can only see learning or review cards, and none of the new cards, despite the settings prioritizing that I see them sooner. My hope is to also see new cards, if anyting I would like to do those all first. I’m not sure how many of the learning/review cards I would need to do first based on my settings, or if this is a technical issue that I’m not realizing is going on. I’ve restarted anki 3 or 4 times in the last half hour. Chat gpt also told me look and see if there is anything under “is:new”.
Thank you for taking time to help me in my deep moment of despair, you are the wind beneath my wings, the backbone of this establishment, and my hero
Kk,
I see here that it shows that you do have 200 new cards:
Is the issue you’re having just that you’d like to see those cards first, before any of the other review cards? Do I have the right idea?
You freaking angel, I can’t believe you’re messaging me back so fast. Thank you! Yeah mostly, that’s the issue. I would like to see these new cards first/sooner, but really I can’t see them at all. No matter how many cards I do today, I can only see learning cards. Ideally, I would love to see new cards with learning/review cards mixed in between them to cushion the blows to my self esteem. But as of right now, I can’t see any of the new cards, at all. it’s only the learning cards. I hope that explains things okay?
Thank you again!
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Gotchu, let’s see what we can do.
So first thing:
You have a lot of cards due. This is likely why you’re not getting to the new cards, because Anki is prioritizing the cards that you already have due. In most cases, this is normal. It’s not ‘good’ or ‘bad’, necessarily, and we can definitely adjust it for you. But is is commonly the default, just FYI.
First, can you show me your main Anki screen, ideally with all decks and subdecks visible? This will help just so I have an idea of how your collection is organized, as this may be important in a couple of steps.
Second, let’s go to deck options by clicking here:
Once you get there, if you can also send me a picture of your whole screen here. This will also give me a bit of info that will be helpful.
I think, if you can snag me those two things, we should be able to get you squared away.
I’m not hellbent on having this many cards open, I’ve just recently started to preapre for boards so I don’t really know how everyone else goes about this slow descent into hell haha. Is there a soft limit I should still to? What are all the cool kids doing? Thank you again Brian, really. I appreciate you
Gotchu.
Okay, let’s go in order:
Like all slow descents into hell: very slowwwww.
The very broad rule of thumb here is that, in an ideal universe, you want to add as many new cards as you can while still maintaining a sustainable total workload.
Where that number is will be a bit trickier to define. If you just absolutely adore Anki, want to score 99th percentile on Step, and medicine is your life, that number is probably going to be higher.
If you are openly hostile to Anki, just want to pass Step 1, and have a love-hate relationship with all forms of medicine, that number is probably going to be lower.
As very general ballpark numbers:
- 100 new cards per day is probably the high-end of comfortable for most folks.
- Less than this number will, obviously, mean you have fewer reviews. But, it will also mean that you take longer to get through the material.
- It’s very hard to judge an average, but I would say 600-800 reviews per day is something like a ballpark average. This number will vary considerably, and a lot of that variation will depend on when folks start (the later you start, the faster you have to move to catch up, and the more the reviews condense and pile up).
The cool kids are doing the following:
- Ideally, figure out how many cards you need to finish and in what timeframe. Divide the number of cards you want to learn by the number of days in which you want to finish. That’s your number of new cards per day.
- Turn on FSRS if you’re not already using it (I don’t want this response to get too long, so I can tell you more about that here in a bit).
What you want to do right now:
From your deck settings screen, you want to look here:
You have three options here, and they are pretty much what they sound like:
- If you want new cards to show up first, select ‘show before reviews.’
- If you want new cards to show up last, select ‘show after reviews.’
- If you want them to show up interspersed with your other reviews, select ‘mix with reviews.’
Again here, there’s no right or wrong, it’s really just what works best for you.
Importantly, once you’ve done that, click ‘save to all subdecks’ here:
Let me know if you get all that and then I can send you some other tutorials and additional bits of info that might make life a bit easier.
Haha I love you bro thank you this is great! i switched it to the numbers you recommended, and just like my foreign mother, anki expressed it’s disappointment in my apparent laziness.
I love anki, and I am only a weak mortal, so i would love your advice on if I should do more new cards a day or more reviews a day so that my mother, i mean anki, isn’t ashamed of my laziness.
PS: I’m not hip enough to know what FSRS is about, I’m sorry haha, what is that?
PSS: Something is working I’ve seen new cards since we started talking, you’re amazing!
This is okay. We can dodge our mothers and Anki’s perils at the same time:
- Set new cards/day to 100
- Set max reviews/day to 99999 (in the strong majority of cases, you don’t want to cap this number with anything lower; we want Anki to do its magic without interference)
I would do two things:
-
- Check and see how many cards you want to finish and in what timeframe. Do that basic arithmetic, so you have a ballpark of what’s ‘reasonable’ based on your timeline and goals.
-
- Check in with yourself: are you chill doing Anki 4+ hours a day? If the answer is ‘yes’, that’s useful info. If the answer is ‘no’ that’s also useful info. Sustainable is smart, and burnout is dumb. You cannot take care of the patient if you become the (psych) patient.
I can’t quite tell, but I have a strong suspicion that you might be on an older version of Anki. This is, actually, fairly important and can make your life a LOT easier:
If you can, can you do me the favor of clicking here and letting me know what version number of Anki you’re on?
We’re like 80% of the way there.
got it, 9999 reviews a day!
I use windows, I’m not sure if that’s helpful info or you could already tell. My version number is a totally different format, unless I pulled the info from the wrong place. Thank you so much again for your help and advice!
Oh, yeah, we gotta get you to upgrade that. 2.1.65 is like 3 years old or something
I’m honestly surprised that you haven’t had issues with add-ons malfunctioning, given the age of that version of Anki.
I would strongly advise that you update to 25.02 here: https://apps.ankiweb.net/
From there, the cool kids have definitely largely upgraded to a new scheduling algorithm (FSRS) which is notably more efficient and can save you a lot of time, and headaches. I can walk you through how to set that up as well, once you’ve upgraded.
i’m on it! Do i need to back anything up?
You should be fine, but it’s always smart to make a backup (first just to be safe):
File - Create Backup, here:
Okay I’m all updated, upon opening it I’ve already done something wrong…
Anki 25.02 (038d85b1) (ao)
Python 3.9.18 Qt 6.6.2 PyQt 6.6.1
Platform: Windows-10-10.0.22631
Unknown errorTraceback (most recent call last):
File “aqt”, line 390, in onRecv
File “colorama.ansitowin32”, line 47, in write
File “colorama.ansitowin32”, line 177, in write
File “colorama.ansitowin32”, line 205, in write_and_convert
File “colorama.ansitowin32”, line 211, in write_plain_text
AttributeError: ‘ErrorHandler’ object has no attribute ‘flush’
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
===Add-ons (active)===
(add-on provided name [Add-on folder, installed at, version, is config changed])
AMBOSS add-on [‘0amboss_addon’, 2024-08-05T08:24, ‘None’, ‘’]
Advanced Browser [‘874215009’, 2023-07-01T13:55, ‘None’, ‘’]
Advanced Review Bottom Bar [‘1136455830’, 2023-09-16T14:48, ‘None’, mod]
AnKing Note Types Easy Customization [‘952691989’, 2025-03-14T06:40, ‘None’, mod]
AnkiHub [‘1322529746’, 2025-02-25T12:04, ‘None’, mod]
Batch Editing [‘291119185’, 2023-10-25T18:38, ‘None’, ‘’]
Colorful Tags Hierarchical Tags [‘594329229’, 2022-09-15T09:06, ‘None’, ‘’]
Contanki - Controller Support for Anki beta [‘1898790263’, 2024-02-29T18:22, ‘v0.9.2-beta’, mod]
Enhanced Cloze for Anki 21 [‘1990296174’, 2023-09-10T12:48, ‘None’, ‘’]
Image Occlusion Enhanced [‘1374772155’, 2022-04-09T01:15, ‘None’, ‘’]
Symbols As You Type [‘2040501954’, 2025-01-05T12:55, ‘None’, ‘’]
===IDs of active AnkiWeb add-ons===
1136455830 1322529746 1374772155 1898790263 1990296174 2040501954 291119185 594329229 874215009 952691989
===Add-ons (inactive)===
(add-on provided name [Add-on folder, installed at, version, is config changed])
I’ve updated the add ons that asked for it! Does this update reset all my settings/ do I need to change any settings that work differently in this update?
Thanks again!
When you have a moment, I was hoping to ask for your advice with something too. One of these new buttons reminded me, is there a way to make anki take sundays off? I’ve tried an add on but had an issue that I don’t remember. The sliders at the button of the options, are they for that?
In most cases you shouldn’t have to change anything. If you do, it will typically prompt you.
There isn’t a native way to do that, as it runs sort of counter to the design of Anki. There are a couple of workarounds though:
There is the ‘Weekends and Holidays’ add-on, which is available here: https://www.theanking.com/best-add-ons
I haven’t used it myself, so I can’t speak too much to the details, but I know it works and I love a lot of folks use it.
On newer versions of Anki you should also see an ‘Easy Days’ selection:
I also haven’t used this yet, so I can’t speak to the specific details here, but it is an option you might look into if you’re curious.
In either event that’s about the extent of my knowledge, though I hope it’s of some help.