Yesterday I tried installing the newest version of Anki (26.08.1 Apple Silicon) on my M1 Macbook after subscribing to anking usmle step deck, and replaced my existing older version of Anki with this new installation.
Now whenever I try opening Anki it just bobs up and down for around a minute. Eventually when it stops and I right-click it, it says “application not responding”. I’ve tried everything: restarting my Macbook, downgrading to older versions (e.g. 25.02.7) and beta versions and re-installing, troubleshooting via terminal, nothing is working and I get the same results every time. Please please help I really need Anki for my studies
Please try all the usual Troubleshooting Steps, including Step 2 where you run Anki in safe mode with add-ons disabled.
If you continue to have difficulty after trying all the Troubleshooting Steps, please try running Anki from the Terminal command line via the /Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/Anki command. (Please continue running Anki in safe mode while doing this.) Running Anki from the command line will allow you to see any error messages that might be printed. Please copy and paste the error messages in your reply.
None of the troubleshooting steps worked for me but I was able to get it opened via the Terminal command in safe mode. The version of Anki I’ve installed is 26.09b3, and the macOS version I’m running is Sequoia 15.1.1.
This was the terminal output when I had inputed your command, does everything look okay?:
2026-09-13 13:56:02.184 Anki[3915:86557] No Python NSLog handler found. stdout/stderr will not be captured.
2026-09-13 13:56:02.184 Anki[3915:86557] To capture stdout/stderr, add ‘std-nslog’ to your app dependencies.
Starting Anki 26.09b3…
2026-09-13 13:56:05,077:INFO:aqt.mediasrv: Serving on http:// 127.0.0.1:49836
Qt warning: GPUInfo not initialized on GpuInfoUpdate
2026-09-13 13:56:11.864 Anki[3915:86557] TSMSendMessageToUIServer: CFMessagePortSendRequest FAILED(-1) to send to port com.apple.tsm.uiserver
thank you so so much again for your help**
UPDATE Actually, I’ve just updated my macOS to Tahoe 26.6.2, and now nothing happens when I put your command line in Terminal while pressing shift. Terminal gives no output and the anki app icon doesn’t even bob up and down.**
When you say “nothing happens”, do you mean that the /Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/Anki command simply exits to the command line prompt without printing any messages? Or, are you instead saying that the command hangs with nothing printed to the terminal?
Please continue to start Anki in safe mode until you are finished with your troubleshooting.
Please fully shutdown/poweroff your MacBook, restart it, and try running the /Applications/Anki.app/Contents/MacOS/Anki command again to see if the behavior is any different.
(I note that macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 was old, from November 2024. If you were able to run Anki in safe mode with 15.1.1 then it suggests that possible causes of the previous problem include add-ons or syncing.)