Preferences

The preferences screen can be accessed by tapping on the gear icon at the top right of the deck list. It allows you to customize various application settings and how AnkiMobile appears.

The Preferences screen is divided up into different sections, which are covered below.

Syncing

The syncing screen allows you to customize cloud synchronization with AnkiWeb.

Sync Sounds & Images
By default, AnkiMobile will sync sounds and images as well as your cards and review history. If you disable this option, sounds and images will not be synced by AnkiMobile.

Full Sync
The full sync button allows you to force a full upload or download of your cards. This is useful if you accidentally deleted some cards and want to revert to the local or remote version, instead of having those deletions propagate to other devices. After tapping the button, you’ll be given a choice of whether you want to upload your collection or download it from AnkiWeb. Please note this option only affects how cards, notes and review history is transferred - it does not change how sounds and images are synced.

Review

The review screen allows you to customize how AnkiMobile behaves when you’re reviewing cards.

Feedback Ticks
Flash a tick or cross in the top right to confirm your answer choice.

Tools Overlay Button
Show the gear/cog icon on the study screen. If you prefer not to see it, you can assign the tools action to the top bar instead.

Tools Overlay Position
Allows you to put the tools button on the left.

Audio Buttons
Allows you to hide the play button that appears for each audio file you’ve placed on the card. Useful if you’d rather replay audio via the "Replay Audio" action bound to a swipe or tap.

Always Duck + Ignore Mute
When enabled, AnkiMobile will quieten any music you have playing in the background, and will automatically play audio even when the mute/vibrate/silent switch is turned on.

Answer Keeps Zoom
By default, if you have zoomed in on a card, the screen will zoom out when you reveal the answer. If you enable this option, AnkiMobile will not zoom out.

Never Type Answer
If you have set up your cards to ask you to type in the answer (as explained in this section of the desktop manual), AnkiMobile will display a keyboard on such cards and allow you to check your answer. If you find typing on a mobile device inconvenient, you can use this option to disable the keyboard for all cards.

Shake Action
Allows you to customize what happens when you shake your device. The default action is to undo the previous answer.

Double Tap Prevention
This option ignores a second tap when two taps are made in quick succession, so that you don’t accidentally reveal the answer or advance to the next card. If you review your cards very quickly, you may wish to select a shorter detection time.

Scheduling

These options affect the way Anki schedules cards in all decks.

Day Starts
Controls when a new day starts and new cards become available. Default is 04:00, which means new cards become available at 4AM.

Learn Ahead Minutes
The number of minutes to look ahead when the only cards remaining to review with a next repetition time in the future. The default is 20 minutes, which means cards due to show in 10 minutes will be shown immediately if nothing else is available to show.

Notifications

When enabled, Anki will display an alert at the selected time of day, reminding you to study and telling you how many reviews are waiting.

Top Bar

You can assign frequently used actions to the top bar for convenient access. For an explanation of the available actions, please see the actions list.

Bottom Bar

Show Bottom Bar
Hides or shows the bottom area that shows the answer buttons and card counts.

Remaining Count
Whether to show the card counts when the question side of a card is being shown.

Answer Buttons
Whether to show the answer buttons on the answer side of a card.

Next Times
Whether to show the next study time above each of the answer buttons.

Taps

When you’re reviewing, you can tap on different parts of a card in order to trigger different actions.

Anki divides the screen into 9 sections:

Each section can have a different action assigned to it if you wish, and the taps when the question is shown are also different from the taps when the answer is shown.

By default, AnkiMobile responds as follows when the question in shown:

In other words, tapping anywhere on the screen will show the answer.

When the answer is shown, by default AnkiMobile responds as follows:

This allows you to tap on the left side of the screen to trigger the red button, and the right side of the screen to trigger the green button. Taps near the middle of the screen will be ignored.

You can assign frequently used actions to taps for convenient access. For an explanation of the available actions, please see the actions list.

Swipes

You can also swipe up, down, left or right across a card to trigger an action.

To ensure swipes don’t interfere with your ability to scroll on a large card or select text, a vertical swipe must begin from the far left or right side of the screen. Begin by placing your finger on the left or right side of the screen, and then move it up or down to trigger the relevant swipe.

Horizontal swipes can be begun from any point on the screen.

With the default settings:

• Swiping left displays the tools window

• Swiping right returns to the deck list

You can assign frequently used actions to swipes for convenient access. For an explanation of the available actions, please see the actions list.

Scratchpad

Ignore Fingers
When enabled, the scratchpad will only respond to the Apple Pencil.

Undo Clears All
Reverses the behaviour of the undo button, so a quick tap clears everything, and a long press clears the last stroke.

Scratchpad Below Buttons
Whether the scratchpad should be placed above or below the bottom bar.

Gamepads

From AnkiMobile 2.0.53+, you can control the study screen with a game controller. The controller must be supported by iOS, and must provide an extended controller profile. Controllers with fewer buttons can not currently be used. For more information on setup, please see this page.

The gamepads section of the preferences allows you to configure which actions are triggered when each button is pressed. You can assign an action to each direction on the d-pad, but the analog thumbpads can not be customized - they will always scroll the card up or down.

General

Theme

The theme screen allows you to customize the bar colours AnkiMobile uses. The available options will depend on whether night mode or iOS 13’s dark mode is enabled.

To customize the appearance of your cards, you’ll need to alter your card templates. You can do this using the Card Template action in the tools screen, or by using the computer version. For more info, please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1j1Zx0mXME&yt:cc=on

Profiles

Profiles allow multiple users to study with the same device. You can add profiles from the settings screen. To rename or remove a profile, swipe to the left on it.

Each profile needs to be synced with its own AnkiWeb account. Please be careful not to sync two profiles with the same AnkiWeb ID, as this could lead to data loss.

Backups

AnkiMobile will automatically create backups of your collection for you. The backups include all your cards and statistics, but do not include sounds or images, since they take up a lot of space.

To restore from a backup, open the Backups section in the preferences, and tap on the backup you wish to restore to.

If you’re unable to get AnkiMobile to start due to a serious error, you can still retrieve the backups from the iTunes file sharing area:

1. Connect your Apple device to your computer via the USB cable.

2. Open iTunes if it doesn’t open automatically.

3. Locate Anki’s file sharing section with Apple’s instructions.

4. Drag the your backup folder from iTunes to your desktop.

5. With the computer version of Anki, create a new, empty profile via File>Switch Profile, and then File>Import the latest backup colpkg from within that profile to confirm that it’s ok. If it is corrupt, you can try a previous backup. You'll need Anki 2.1.50+ to open the backups.

Check Database

This will check your collection for a number of possible errors and fix them if possible.

It also will remove any tags that are no longer used by any cards.

Check Media

This scans all your notes for references to sounds and images, and then checks to make sure that the sounds and images are available. It will display a report letting you know of any sounds or images that are missing, and any sounds or images that are not used by any cards. If you tap the delete button, the unused sounds or images will be deleted.