Hi, my desktop Anki updated and accidentally wiped half of my custom images and now they show broken squares. The empty media state synced to AnkiWeb before I could stop it, so they are gone from all my devices. I do not have the original backup source files anymore. Is it possible to have an administrator roll back my AnkiWeb media folder to a snapshot from 9/15/2026 or before?
(Note: The email address for this forum account matches my AnkiWeb account email).
Thank you!
Try these things first, and let me know what you find.
Just updating the app wouldn’t delete images from your data. Did you accidentally delete your Anki2 folder yourself? If you did, you should look in your Recycle Bin/Trash and see if you can restore that folder.
Have you run Tools > Check Media to be sure those files are actually gone? Look at both the “Missing” and “Unused” lists, and make sure you don’t have similarly named files on both lists.
It would also help if you can give me an example filename of a file that is missing.
Media changes can sync in the background between desktop and AnkiWeb, but that’s not the case on the mobile apps. If you haven’t synced AnkiMobile yet, your images should still be there. To rescan your media and restore the missing files to the server – ⚙️Preferences > Syncing > Log Out – then click Synchronize to log in again.
Hi, so i’m honestly not sure what happened, but i don’t have anything in my trash file and doing check media just shows like 5000 missing. Maybe they got deleted because i did the update at 9am EST and then didn’t realize they went missing till late. I spent over 3 hours trying to troubleshoot. Even when i didn’t sync on my ipad, it the images shows as missing so it looks like all my devices are synced the same way with half the images missing. Is there anyway you guys have an old backup that can be pulled up? I’d greatly appreciate it
Hi Danika, any update on if there is any way I can restore my deck before 9/16? Thanks
I can restore the recently deleted files on the server side, but it is probably a lot more than you need. You didn’t answer the rest of what I asked about the media check – but I can tell you that there were at least 10K files deleted from your account in past 2 days, so I will be able to restore those, and then you’re going to have to clean up the ones you don’t need.
It’s best if you don’t try to sync while I’m doing that. Confirm if you’re ready for me to start. I’ll let you know when I start and report back when it finishes.
Hi Danika. If you can set it to either 9/15 or 9/14 to be safe that would be greatly appreciated. I am not very tech savy so I am not really sure what happened. All i know is that this occured after I was forced to uninstall the old anki version to install the update. I did try to do some damage control in case you were not able to help me this morning but I will be officially off anki so you can restore. Thanks again!
I can restore media in chunks by day-of-deletion, but I can’t tell exactly how much will be restored in advance, because my counter only goes up to 10K. But you’re going to have to download all of it, even though it sounds like 5K+ of those files aren’t ones you need. So it’s better to cast a narrower net, see how much is restored, and then see if there’s anything you still need available beyond that.
I’m starting the restore now. I’ll update you when it’s done.
The process finished and restored 45537 files – an additional 6+ GB of media. There were no additional deleted files going back a few more days.
When you sync again, that will start downloading, but it’s unlikely to finish in the first sync. Media may continue syncing in the background, or you can continue running Sync until you have it all. Use Tools > Check Media after each sync to see the “Missing”/“Unused” numbers change.
When that’s all downloaded on desktop, you’ll need to do the same on all of your other devices. You can verify progress there using Check Media too, comparing the results to desktop.
After you get all devices fully in sync – now is your chance to clean up unnecessary media that you’ve been storing and syncing. [If you try to clean it up before you are fully synced, the unnecessary files are likely to be restored.] You were only looking for 5K files that were “Missing” (needed in your collection) – so now you’ve got at least 40K files you don’t need.
Run Tools > Check Media > Delete Unused Media. At this first step, the files will just be moved to another folder, so it’s completely safe and reversible. Syncing after that will delete those files from the server and your other devices. You can wait until you’re confident that was media you didn’t need before going back to run the second step, Empty Trash.