How Anki shows you cards

The order Anki shows cards depends on how you configure it.

The three queues

Anki has three queues.

1. The failed queue. Sorted in the order cards have been seen - oldest first.
2. The review queue. Sorted from highest to lowest priority. Cards at the same priority are sorted depending on their urgency (how late you are in answering them, and how well you know them).
3. The new queue. Sorted from highest to lowest priority. Cards at the same priority are sorted in the order you added them, or randomly, depending on your settings.

When Anki chooses a card from one of the queues, it always chooses the one at the top of the queue.

Scheduling policies

Anki looks for the next card using the following method

1. The first failed card which is due

2. <this changes>

3. Any remaining failed cards

Number 2 changes depending on your settings.

Spreading new cards

In this (the default) setting, Anki alternates between new and previously seen cards. The number of previously seen cards you'll see before you see a new card depends on the ratio of new cards to cards to review. If you have many new cards and few previously seen cards, you will see a new card after each previously seen card. If you have many cards to review and few new cards, you will see many previously seen cards between each new card.

Previously seen first

In this setting, all cards that are due for review are shown first.

Priorities

Priorities alter the order of the review and new card queue. Under most circumstances, they don't change whether a previously seen or new card will be shown next. You can customize priorities with Settings>Deck Properties.

Very high priority

If you use the default 'spread new cards' scheduling policy, and there are any very high priority previously seen cards, they will be shown first. In the other scheduling policies, this option simply changes the order of the respective queues.

High priority

Higher priority than normal, but less than 'very high priority'. Will never change which queue is picked for the next card.

Normal priority

This is the default priority. Cards that haven't been given a specific priority will default to this.

Low priority

Cards marked low priority will be put at the bottom of their respective queues. Will never change which queue is picked for the next card.