Accidentally overwrote my AnkiWeb collection

Anki Syncing & AnkiWeb
1

Hi everyone,

I made a mistake while syncing and hope someone can tell me if there’s any way to recover my data.

What happened:

  • Today I spent the whole day adding Japanese vocabulary to a deck (called something like “Japanese Vocab”) using the AnkiWeb web version. I was logged in the whole time.
  • Afterwards I installed the Anki app on my [phone/tablet – add your device]. I had already used the app in the past and had some decks and cards in it, which are still there.
  • When I synced for the first time, I was asked how to resolve the conflict and accidentally chose the wrong option (I believe it was the upload/overwrite option). As a result, the app’s old collection replaced the one on AnkiWeb, and all the vocabulary I added today is gone.

What I’ve already tried:

  • The app’s automatic backups don’t help, since they only contain the state from before the sync, not the cards I added on the web.
  • I haven’t synced again since then.

My questions:

  1. Is there any way to restore the previous AnkiWeb collection (e.g. a server-side backup)?
  2. Could the cards still exist somewhere, for example on another device or in a cached version?
  3. Is there anything I should avoid doing right now so I don’t make it worse?

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks in advance!

2

You sync at least one other device with your account. Did you sync that new material on that device first, before you mis-synced on desktop?

If so, when you open that app, you’ll be given the one-way sync options, and you should select to “keep AnkiDroid” collection (upload to AnkiWeb). Then on desktop, receive that sync with download from AnkiWeb. [If you want to keep that old desktop collection too, you need to preserve it first.]

If the only place that material existed was in your AnkiWeb account – probably not. Server-side backups are made much less frequently than local device backups – so you don’t get a lot of choice in what gets restored.

I’m looking at the AnkiWeb account connected to the email address you used to post here. It was just created a few days ago. The only server-side backup of your account was made on/at [click for timestamp in your local time zone] – which was probably before you added that material, since you said that was “today.”