Cannot find data after uninstall-reinstall

Anki Help
1

I uninstalled and reinstalled the new anki but now all my data is gone. i dont know what to do or how to recover can someone please help me!

2

If all you did is uninstall and reinstall, your data hasn’t been touched.

Did you also delete folders? Did you delete just the program-related folders suggested here – or did you also delete you Anki2 data folder?

3

No i still have my Anki2 data folder but i am not able to sync it with my new anki. Is that where my old data is? I didnt delete any folders

4

Then your situation doesn’t seem related to the error thread you posted in.

If Anki is running there will be an Anki2 folder – but it’s either the one you already had, or a newly created one. Try this –

  • From inside Anki, File > Switch Profile – are there any other profiles listed there?

  • Is your Anki2 folder at the default location – Managing Files - Anki Manual?

  • When you had Anki installed before, did you move your Anki2 data to a different location – like using a startup option or environmental variable – Managing Files - Anki Manual?

5
  1. There are no other profiles listed
  2. I am not sure where the default location for the Anki2 folder would be
  3. I did not move Anki2 to a different location
6

Read the link.

10

Yes i believe so

I am hesitant to move files around since i dont want to make the issues worse. is there a way you can zoom into my computer and view what im viewing?

Screenshot 2026-09-15 at 12.52.06 PM
Screenshot 2026-09-15 at 12.52.06 PM2880×1800 149 KB

Screenshot 2026-09-15 at 12.52.11 PM
Screenshot 2026-09-15 at 12.52.11 PM2880×1800 163 KB
This is what the files look like on my end

11

No, I can’t connect to your computer. I can’t really tell you what it should look like, since I don’t know what profiles or add-ons you had on your computer before. But if all of that is newly created folders/files (check their creation dates) and mostly empty – then this is a new Anki2 folder.

Installing Anki can’t overwrite your existing Anki2 folder, and it would only create a new one if there wasn’t one there. If it’s possible that you had it stored somewhere else, you should search your computer for that.

It doesn’t seem like all you did was uninstall the app. So, if you also deleted your data folder, you might still be able to recover it in your Recycle Bin/Trash, wherever your system stores files before fully deleting them.

Otherwise – it looks like you recently synced with AnkiWeb, so you’ll be able to download that version of your collection from there. Once you set up syncing, the collection database should download in one sync, but you’ve got over 11 GB of media in your account, so that could take several tries to get all of it.

[Once you’re fully synced, you should consider running Tools > Check Media > Delete Unused Media to get rid of any of that media you don’t actually still need.]