New Cards
New Cards/Day
By default, Anki will introduce 20 new cards to you a day, provided you have due cards in your deck. This allows you to enter many new cards in at once, and then work through them over a period of days, weeks, or months. Setting this to 0 will prevent any new cards from being shown, which is useful if you have a backlog of reviews to do. This option will not add new cards on days you don’t open Anki.
Display Order
The first box allows you to choose between showing new cards in the order they were added to the deck (oldest first), in reverse order (newest first), or in random order.
The second box lets you choose whether new cards should be shown before reviews, after reviews, or whether they should be mixed in with reviews. Introducing new cards before reviews is not recommended, as it carries the risk of becoming overwhelmed with reviews.
Selective Study
Controls which new cards should be shown. Please see the selective study section for more information.
Reviews
Max Failed Cards
By default, Anki will stop showing reviews or new cards when your failed cards count reaches 20. You can increase or decrease this number to control how many failures you want before previous cards start getting reviewed again. Setting it to 0 means there is no limit, and failed cards will only be displayed at the end.
It’s often cited that we can only hold about 7 items in our short term memory - or "working memory" (see Wikipedia). It may be tempting to reduce the number of failed cards to 7 so that you can more easily remember card 1 by the time you get to card 7. But by doing this, you are simply testing your short term memory, and not encouraging the memories to become stronger.
Contrast the default value of 20 cards. By the time 20 cards have been failed, card 1 is less likely to be in our working memory. We won’t be able to instantly recall it, because it was not seen shortly before, and so we have to think harder: either by making mnemonics, spending more time memorizing, or straining more to recall. When we do recall it, we know that memory lasts at least 10 minutes. This is important, because the next time the card will be seen is in 1-5 days. A card that you successfully recalled 10+ minutes later has a much higher chance of being recalled the next day than a card you answered correctly 1 minute later.
Display Order
The first box controls the order cards due for review are displayed in:
- From largest interval
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Cards you know well and haven’t seen for a long time are shown first. These cards are easier to answer than newer cards, so a review session starts on a more positive note.
- From smallest interval
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Cards you don’t know well are shown first. This order makes it less likely newer cards will be forgotten before you have a chance to review them, but it can be demotivating to start with the hardest cards first.
- In order due
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Cards appear in the order they become ready for review. This mode ensures that all cards are delayed for as little time as possible.
- In random order
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Cards appear in a random order. Useful if you are studying related material in batches, and in order due is not random enough for your needs.
The second box controls the delay after pressing the "Again" answer button.
- Show failed cards soon
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Show failed cards after 10 minutes. If there are no new cards left to study, and all reviews are complete, then show remaining failed cards earlier.
- Show failed cards at end
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Delay showing failed cards until all reviews and new cards for the day are done.
- Show failed cards in 10 minutes
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Always wait 10 minutes. If there are no other cards to study and 10 minutes haven’t elapsed, show the congratulations screen.
- Show failed cards in 8 hours
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As above, but wait 8 hours.
- Show failed cards in 3 days
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As above, but wait 3 days.
- Custom failed card handling
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Shown if you have customized advanced options in Settings>Deck Properties>Advanced
Selective Study
Controls which of the cards due for review should be shown. Please see the selective study section for more information.
Timeboxing
Timeboxing provides some tools to divide your study sessions up into smaller, more manageable blocks. If you have about 30 minutes of reviews due for the day, breaking those reviews up into multiple 10 minute blocks can help you stay focused, compete against your previous review times, or provide a break from time to time.
The top section shows some statistics. The numbers on the left in black show the number for the last session, or the previous day. The numbers in blue on the right show the number for the current session, or the current day.
- Cards/session
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How many cards have been studied in the session. If you see the same card twice, it will be counted twice.
- Cards/day
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How many cards have been seen over the day.
- Time/day
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The time spent reviewing over the day.
The next section shows some more general information about the deck.
- Reviews due
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The number of reviews that should be done that day, in order for optimum retention. If you’ve come back from a holiday and have a large number of cards due, you don’t have to answer all the cards in one day.
- New today
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The number of new cards left today, based on your settings in the "New Cards" section above.
- New total
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The total number of cards in the deck that haven’t been seen before.
The bottom section lets you customize your day and session limits.
- Time limit (mins)
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The number of minutes to do a session for. The default is 10 minutes. When a session is finished, the study options page will be displayed again, and you can compare how well you did over previous sessions, and then keep studying or stop for the day.
- Question limit (reps)
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The number of questions to ask before returning to the study options page. This counts questions (repetitions, or reps), rather than cards, so if you fail a card and answer it again, it will count as two.