Accidently lost many media files from my cards

Anki Syncing & AnkiWeb
1

Hi,
I tried to update my deck with a newer version of the deck, and after realizing this version is messed up my created cards, I reverted to an older back. unfortunately, many media filed went missing.
I have all my notes but the cards show a missing file icon within them. I have heard there is sometimes a server-side backup for media

Thanks in advance for the help

@dae

2

I think @Danika_Dakika is the person to tag for that kind of issues

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3

@Danika_Dakika

Thanks for the reply!

I hope this kind person would help. I probably messed up thing while trying, and lost a 1.5-2 years of screenshots, media files, mp3, mp4, etc..

Pretty devastating..

4

Unless you specifically deleted them (Check Media > Delete Unused Media), they are still in your collection.media folder. And unless the updated deck overwrote those files with other same-named files, they are still just as you left them. Even restoring an automatic backup of your collection wouldn’t change that, because media is not included in those backups. So, are you sure you don’t have them?

  1. If you think you accidentally deleted the media files, have you already synced with AnkiWeb? If not, don’t sync. Go to Preferences > Syncing and log out. Then click Sync and log in again. [This will re-scan your media and any missing files will be downloaded from AnkiWeb.]

  2. Have you opened Anki on your other device(s) – in airplane mode to avoid automatic syncing – to see if the media files still show up there?

  3. Where are you looking for the media files and not seeing them?

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5

Thank you for the reply!

I think that

  1. The new update overwrote the media since in my stupidity i forgot to protect these fields. I notice first changes in other fields, and than I realized the media is missing as well
  2. Now that you mention it, I think did delete them it by mistake, unfortunately, and synched it while trying to complete my daily cards. I thought, since I reverted to an older backup, these missing media are related to the new deck update i had just tried to do.

Have you opened Anki on your other device(s) – in airplane mode to avoid automatic syncing – to see if the media files still show up there?

I finished the rest of my daily cards there and synched that as well, unfortunately

Where are you looking for the media files and not seeing them?

They are missing both from the cards, and from the “collection.media” folder + somtimes when I know that a note field contained my media, I find that there is a different media there at the moment, probably overwritten by this stupid update i tried to do…

Is there any chance to restore these media files? specifically all media files that were in my deck from the last sync that I did before 11:30 am on November 12th, 2025.

EDIT: I was able to recover the deleted filer in the trash folder through folder’s properties, but still it shows that I have →

  • Missing files: ⁨3877⁊
  • Unused files: ⁨20046⁊

Any help/suggestions would much appreciated!

Thank you SO MUCH in advance!

6

Overwriting the contents of a field doesn’t delete the media from your collection. It just tells cards from that note to use a different media file. Restoring the contents of the fields should restore the old media references, and the files should still be there.

Do you know what your number of missing files was before this problem began? Are any of the files that are still listed as “missing” the ones you’re concerned about?

Since you restored your database (notes/fields) and you restored the files that were deleted locally, you might have gotten yourself back to where you were before all this. So are you sure there are more files you need to recover?

7

Even though I restored some of the files, and the syncing log has been completed (about 10 hours ago) - it still shows me that most of the cards media are missing (ie this small icon when there should be a card but there isn’t)

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Yes. Most of the screenshots, which have been pasted by me are listed there.

9

Okay, I have restored the recently deleted media in your AnkiWeb account. When you sync, that will start downloading, but it was over 43,000 files, about 4.5 GB – so it is going to take several tries to get everything I’m sure.

This is restore-media process can result in some short-term syncing irregularities (like – a message saying there was a sync error even though everything looks like it synced correctly), but just keep syncing and that may pass.

After you have the media back, you will need to make sure that all of your notes are restored the way you want them, and refer to the correct media. If they don’t, the media could be deleted again.

Once everything is settled, and all of your devices are in sync, you really need to clean up your unused media. You’ve already got 20K unused files, and I possibly restored another 40K for you just now. Media - Anki Manual

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10

THANK YOU!!! you have literally just saved me the last ~2 years of work (12hrs/day)
Now I have only 3 missing files, which by quick scan through the browser i deemed them as not important.

→ As you can see in the attached image, I do have a lot of unused media. Just want to confirm:

  1. should i just delete unused or empty trash folder as well
  2. should I do the same thing you would suggested in the AnkiMobile app?

Could you please tell me how to check that? should I just check database?

As you said, this keeps to happen even though all notes are technically present according to the media check. anything i should do if this problem persist more than a few days?

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Once again, thank you VERY MUCH!!! I am Immensely grateful.

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