Help! Accidentally deleted all media and synced with AnkiWeb

Anki Help
1

Hello,

I made a terrible mistake. I accidentally deleted my entire media folder from my computer and then, without realizing it, I synced my empty collection to AnkiWeb. This caused all my media to be deleted from the server.

My cards and decks are still there, but all my images are broken.

I’ve read in other threads that the developers can sometimes restore recently deleted media. I would be extremely grateful if this is possible.

2

Try all of these things first –

  1. If you deleted the folder/files from outside Anki – have you already checked your system’s “recycle bin” or wherever deleted files go?

  2. If you deleted the files from inside Anki – have you already checked your media.trash folder – Media - Anki Manual ?

  3. Since you have other devices synced to your account, you can also recover the media from there.

    • Option A: Open the app in airplane mode so it doesn’t sync before you’re ready. Go to Settings/Preferences > Syncing – log out of AnkiWeb. Then click Sync and log in again. That should rescan your media and restore anything that was deleted.

    • Option B: If you can access your collection.media folder on your other device [e.g., an Android device connected to your computer via USB], you can copy your that folder to your profile on desktop to restore it.

3

Tried all.

Opened in my other device and media got deleted from there as well. Collection.media is also empty on my phone.

Please try to restore it from your side.

4

Okay, I have restored the recently deleted media in your AnkiWeb account. When you sync, that will start downloading, but it was over 76,000 files, almost 6 GB – so it is going to take several tries to get everything I’m sure.

This restore-media process can also result in some short-term syncing irregularities (like – a message saying there was a sync error even though everything looks like it synced correctly), but just keep syncing and that may pass.

Once everything is settled, and all of your devices are in sync, you should clean up your unused media so you and the servers don’t need to worry about storing and syncing it again. Media - Anki Manual

5

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