I am owning a MacBook Neo since last week. I’ve installed Anki for macOS. The application is not opening. Upon start the icon in the dock jumps two times at the first attempt after installation and one time in any other attempt.
The MacBook Neo runs macOS 26.3.1. It uses an A18 processer. Not an M-Processor but still Apple Silicon, though. From my POV: compatbility issues were expected with the device as it mixes macOS with an iPhone SoC but I hope it’s fixable.
Please use the Terminal app to start the Anki Launcher, by running this command:
/Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/launcher
Doing this will allow you to see any error messages that get printed. If you need further assistance, please copy/paste the error messages in your reply.
Could you please also answer these questions:
Hi, after restarting the system two times, it suddenly started working. There were no updates in between.
I transfered from a previous Intel MacBook running MacOS 15.
Hey Ben i would appreciate some help; i know jack shit about computers and my Anki isn’t opening after i’ve used migration assistant from an old Macbook air to the Macbook neo. I put in your prompt and got the following response
I’ve also tried the good ol’ delete it and reinstall it again method
It appears that there is something that is being run that isn’t appropriate for the CPU in your current MacBook Neo computer.
I suspect that the answer to both of those questions is “yes”. But, if that is not the case, please let me know.
/Users/inoscopedjfk/Library/Application Support/AnkiProgramFiles ? That is now you delete an old Anki installation. (If you instead merely deleted /Applications/Anki.app, that is just the Anki Launcher, not the actual Anki installation. If you didn’t delete the actual Anki installation, you might want to do so and then try the launcher again.)I suspect that if you delete the Anki installation and re-run the launcher, it might still fail but with a different error message, probably one mentioning “Failed to patch the install name”. If that is the case, please let us know. We’ll probably then try deleting and re-installing Command Line Tools as the next step.
I attempted to reinstall as well before the restart. Did it with brew cask. BUT its possible that I explicitly installed Rosetta in the meantime (before it worked after restarting). So this might be missing after migration between Intel based Mac and MacBook Neo. The Neo definitly got some special code in macOS by Apple.
@BenJamesBen I must’ve only deleted the application and reinstalled it.
“Did the old MacBook Air have an Intel chip (not one of the M1, M2, etc. Apple Silicon chips)?
Did you have Anki installed on your old MacBook Air, and it got transferred to your new MacBook Neo and now no longer works?”
The answer to both these questions is Yes, it was a Macbook air from 2019. Is this a common issue that arises when converting data from the older intel chips to newer apple models?
sourced: Using intel-based apps on a Mac with Apple silicon- Apple support, On March,2026 (if anyone else reads this thread and has a very similar problem)
I’m a total monkey when it comes to troubleshooting computers and software - Biology major. I understand why my Anki isn’t working as my new chip is not translating the older data properly so if i downloaded this rosetta thing and restarted my data migration, would it work?
You can try it out 
Go to the commmand line and execute:
softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license
(never “just” run commands someone told you on the internet … verify that this really installs Rosetta)
After that I would suggest uninstalling Anki completely and reinstalling it. If syncing is enabled, you wont require a new migration from the old MacBook.
The short answer is “yes”, using Rosetta probably would work.
The long answer is that I consider Rosetta to be a short-term, temporary workaround which will eventually be phased out. That is why I first try to see if the problem can be actually fixed before turning to the workaround.
But, my idea of short-term is 4-5 years. Other people might consider that long-term. “5 years from now I will have graduated and will no longer need Anki, so using the workaround is fine for me.” And, other people might not have time to troubleshoot and fix the actual problem. “I need to study now, so I will use the workaround. I’ll worry about fixing the problem later, if and when it becomes an issue.”
Edit: Added:
Yes, this is a common problem that we see with Mac users who use Migration Assistant to transfer their Anki installation from an old, Intel system to a new, Apple Silicon system. The problem is that it isn’t appropriate to transfer the Anki program from one computer to another. Instead, just the Anki data files (your cards, media files, etc.) should be transferred over. But, Migration Assistant transfers both.
Thank you both for your advice and your time, both of you helped provide clarity and made troubleshooting the issue a million times easier. After asking some friends who are better at computers than me, I had decided to use the rosetta work around (without messing up my terminal) and IT WORKS!
All the best bros!
edit: I should also add that I also tried deleting it completely via the terminal as well and reinstalling it, it unfortunately did not work. For my purposes the Rosetta method works quite well, however I’m sure that there is a better yet more convoluted work around suitable for longer term use.
