Deleted back field Anki Web

Anki Help
1

I use Anki 2 on my Mac and accidentally deleted a field that was responsible for the backs of my cards. After that, all the backs of my cards were blank, even though the fronts are still visible. I have since reactivated the field, but the old backs are still blank.

However, in the last few days, I have created and edited many new cards that are still displaying correctly. I want to make sure that these new cards are not lost while I try to restore the old backs.

I have not synchronized Anki with AnkiWeb yet and was unsure whether a backup would contain the old backs.

Could you please let me know if there is a way to restore the backsides that existed before they were deleted? Or what steps I can take to display the backsides of the current cards correctly without losing the new data?

Thank you in advance for your help!

2

The ways to go back after making a destructive change are:

  • If you want to roll-back changes you’ve made just now (and haven’t closed or synced since then) – Edit > Undo [Ctrl Z] the change. [If you select it from the menu, Anki will describe which change it is reversing with each click (useful when you can’t see it happening!).]
  • If you want to roll-back changes made longer ago than that – Option A: Restore from an automatic or manual backup [but you’ll lose any reviews and changes you’ve made since that backup was created].
    • If you just want to grab one thing from a backup (like the text of a template, or one deck out of many, or a set of notes/cards that use a particular note type), you can minimize data loss by importing the backup into a brand new (temporary) profile, find what you’re looking for, copy/export it, and then import it into your main profile.
  • If you want to roll-back changes made longer ago than that – Option B: Force a one-way sync and download from AnkiWeb [but you’ll lose any reviews and changes you’ve made since your last sync].

It sounds like your best option to restore the data to that field of those notes is to export just those notes from a local automatic backup, and import them into your collection. (Option A, “If you just want to grab one thing …” above.)