FSRS - Reviews drasticall up

Hey everyone,

After over 2 years of using the regular scheduler, I decided to use FSRS. I’m assuming the model has a lot of data to train on so my config should be pretty good.

The thing is, my reviews went up drastically since I did that 2 days ago. And when I look at the estimator, it seems it’ll go up another 30% slowly until end of May and then go back down until late 2026 where it should be lower than it is now.

At the same time, I see that my learning reviews are super down (9 instead of maybe 30 per day before) but my green reviews are the ones being up a lot.

Can someone help me understand that? Is it normal? Did I mess up anything? I’m using the model’s learning steps btw.

Thank you!

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There are three things you should know:

  1. Don’t use Reschedule cards on change if you don’t want too many reviews.
  2. If you have too many reviews, lower your Desired retention (DR). Use Compute minimum recommended retention (CMRR) to find out the lowest DR can go.
  3. Use different presets for different material so you can optimise the DR/params for each seperately.

I also suggest you read through Deck Options - Anki Manual to understand what’s going on. Use simulator to see how many reviews you’re expected to get and accordingly change the settings.

Is this from the FSRS Helper add-on? I don’t think those LS are particularly guaranteed to work so you’re fine not using them if you want to.

If you entered a target retention that exceeds your current retention on mature cards by a lot, then your review count is going to go up, even with FSRS. What is your current retention and what target did you set?

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Okay, I think my retention was like 83% and the target right now is set to 90%.

I used the estimator to see how low I can get without a drastic increase in reviews and 87% seems like a sweet spot for my tolerance. :slight_smile: My reviews will go up for a few months but that’s fine!

Thanks guys

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FYI, if you’re lowering your DR, you can maybe try a reschedule and (hopefully) FSRS gives you less average reviews. If not, just undo the change.

Well, it’s fine if you are happy with current load.

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Just gave that a try, my reviews went from 110 cards to 1300 lol. Used the backup immediately