Recover Deleted Cards

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I meant to click Rename but accidentally clicked Delete,now when I go to add those cards to a deck,they are gone(bc I deleted them). I have spent alot of time organizing the step deck to my liking, so going to backup would make it very time consuming to have to reorganize everything. Is it possible to recover just the cards I accidentally deleted? If it helps I know what the tags are.

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Unfortunately, if you actually deleted cards (not just removed them from a deck) in the Anki desktop client, there is no built‑in way to selectively “undelete” only those cards without using a backup.

A few clarifying points that might help:

  1. Check if they’re truly deleted vs. just moved/filtered

    • In Anki, deleting from a filtered deck only removes them from that filtered deck; the cards still exist in the main collection.
    • If you deleted them from the Browse window or from a regular deck, they are truly deleted from the collection.

  2. Anki/AnkiHub doesn’t have a per-card recycle bin

    • Neither Anki nor AnkiHub keeps a separate trash history of deleted cards you can restore individually.
    • Recovery is normally done by restoring a full Anki backup (File → Switch Profile → [profile] → Downgrade & Quit → choose backup or via profile backup list), which, as you said, will roll back deck organization.

  3. What you can try (none are perfect, but worth considering):

    • Restore from the most recent backup, then:
      • Export just the note types / tags of interest to a .apkg file.
      • Close Anki and reopen your current collection (with your organization).
      • Import that .apkg back in so you get the deleted notes/cards re-added, then re‑tag / re‑position as needed.
    • This lets you “pull” only the missing notes out of a backup instead of fully rolling back your main collection.

    Rough workflow:

    1. Back up your current collection (File → Export → Anki collection package).
    2. Restore an older backup that still has the cards.
    3. In Browse, search by your known tags to isolate the notes you want.
    4. Export only those notes (Notes in current search) to an .apkg.
    5. Re-open your current collection (the one with all your organization).
    6. Import the .apkg so those notes/cards are added back.

  4. AnkiHub-specific angle

    • If these cards are part of an AnkiHub deck and still exist in the shared deck on AnkiHub, you can:
      • Make sure the deck is still subscribed and synced in AnkiHub.
      • In Anki, run AnkiHub → Force Full Sync (or similar option in the add‑on).
      • This can sometimes re-download missing shared notes/cards that were deleted locally, as long as:
        • You didn’t delete them as an AnkiHub author change (i.e., you didn’t delete them on the shared deck itself), and
        • The notes still exist in the AnkiHub source deck.

If you can share:

  • Whether these cards were part of an AnkiHub shared deck or a personal deck, and
  • Whether you have a recent Anki backup from before the deletion,

I can walk you through the exact steps (including search filters by tag) to recover them with the least disruption to your current organization.

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Hello,

I would be happy to help. :slight_smile:

As a general rule, you can always restore from a local backup: How to Restore From Backup

The Anki software periodically, and automatically, makes backups of your local collection typically a number of times each day

Give that a shot, let me know how you fare, and we’ll go from there and hopefully we can get you squared away. :slight_smile:

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Would that alter my current deck organization or resuspend any of my cards?

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Well, it will restore your collection to whatever condition it was in at the point in time at which the backup was made. So whatever organization you had then, will be reinstituted