I had 2 decks in my ankiweb. I found some shared decks in ankiweb, downloaded and added to ankimobile (iphone). I wanted to sync the shared decks with my created decks on web so all 4 decks would appear in both ankiweb and ankimobile. When I synced, the mobile only shows the 2 shared decks and I lost my 2 decks I had created on ankiweb.
If there anyway to get my created decks back on Ankiweb and have them in Ankimobile iphone?
What did I do wrong so this does not happen again?
If you had 2 separate collections – one in AnkiWeb, and one in AnkiMobile – you can’t merge those collections by setting up syncing. The first sync will always be a one-way sync, and it sounds like you didn’t read the warning carefully and chose upload to AnkiWeb. That overwrote what you had on AnkiWeb with what was in AnkiMobile. See these instructions for what you should have done instead.
If the decks that are missing were only ever in AnkiWeb, and never synced to any device, the only possibility to get them back is for me to restore a server-side backup in your account. The last two server backups for this account were made this week (possibly today, depending on where you are in the world) – click for timestamp in your local time zone – and last week – click for timestamp in your local time zone. I don’t know whether that most recent one was made before or after you overwrote your collection, so you’ll have to tell me. If you want me to restore one of those into your account, please confirm, and tell me which one.
I am not sure which one would have my old deck. possible the older of the 2. You can try the back up and if it is not there then I guess I don’t have it any longer. I find web vs mobile extremely confusing and frustrating that there is a one way sync. I was only trying to get some of the shared decks to also use. Very frustrated with this. Sync does not equal the term overwrite. Sync means bringing all together. From the amount of questions on this - seems like a common problem with how mobile and web are setup. I truly hope you address this issue so people like myself aren’t losing hours of work.
Okay, I’ve restored the backup I had labeled above as “last week.”
It’s important that you read the warnings the app gives you on-screen, and don’t just click through them. Since I just restored a backup in your account, on your next sync, you’ll be required to do a one-way sync again. To bring this version of your collection on your local device, you’ll need to choose download from AnkiWeb – and (just like the warning says) that will overwrite your local collection.
To avoid a repeat of this frustration, you should export each of the decks in your local collection to preserve them before this initial sync, so you can merge the two collections after syncing. Or, if all you’ve done so far is import those shared decks, and you don’t have any edits or review history that you want to preserve – you can accept the one-way sync, and then reimport those shared decks to add them to your collection.