23,933 missing media files after Mac restore – request AnkiWeb media recovery

Anki Syncing & AnkiWeb
1

Hi, my Mac was recently restored. After reinstalling Anki and syncing with AnkiWeb, my cards/decks returned, but almost all of my images are missing.

Tools → Check Media currently shows:

Missing files: 23,933
Unused files: 38,536

I have already logged out of AnkiWeb in Preferences → Syncing, logged back in, completed another sync, and rerun Check Media. The number of missing files remains exactly 23,933. I don’t have another computer containing the original media because this same Mac was restored.

Could an Anki staff member please check whether these 23,933 media files were recently deleted from my AnkiWeb account, and if so, whether they can be restored server-side from the AnkiWeb media backup?

Thank you!

2

There have been no media files recently deleted from your account.

Since you are syncing your collection to a “new” device for the first time, you need to allow enough time for everything to sync. That could take several tries, especially if you have a lot of media, a lot of large files, or slow internet. You have almost 16 GB of media in your account currently.

Unless you just started syncing today, all of that media should be on the AnkiMobile device(s) synced to this account. So, if you want to speed up the process, you should run ⚙️ Preferences > Check Media > Delete Unused Media in AnkiMobile and get rid of your unused media there. That will save you and the servers the time and effort of syncing unnecessary media – Media - Anki Docs .

Sync those changes to AnkiWeb, and sync as many times as necessary until the media sync is complete. Then you can start syncing that media to your new device. After each sync, you can run Check Media on each device to make sure the results are getting closer together.

[Since your devices are not currently synced, there’s a chance the syncing process will restore some of those deleted files. So, once both of your devices are fully synced, you should run Delete Unused Media again.]

This is a lot of media, so it is likely that it is syncing gradually in the background. Anki intentionally tries not to overload the connection with too much media at once.

3

Okay, it has been a few weeks so I assumed it would be done by now, I will try deleting unused files and see if that helps.

4

A few weeks is longer than I would expect too.

  • Double-check in Preferences > Syncing that you have “synchronize audio and images” and “periodically sync media” both enabled.

  • Do you leave Anki running, with your computer connected to the internet, when you’re not using it? If that’s not your usual habit, give that a try for a few days.