Hi! I have downloaded many decks to study with and never had this issue but I noticed I can’t see some pictures. I followed some tutorials but in my media it says I have a lot unused, which I assume is ones I haven’t looked at yet and 18 missing files. Is there a way to get them back/be able to see the images? Thank you!
The unused images are… well, unused. Unless you have many cards with missing images, it’s safe to delete them using the button at the bottom.
The 18 files that are missing are probably the ones you need. You can use the button to tag the notes with missing media, then search for them in the card browser, tag:missing-media. Finding the files is another story.
Sometimes, shared decks just come with missing media. Sometimes, it’s a syncing issue. I don’t know, try syncing or just live with the 18 missing files.
What does deleting unused actually delete? I am worried it is deleting cards I have yet to do?
It deletes images and audio files that aren’t used by any of the cards in your collection. Cards aren’t affected by this action. It also doesn’t delete the files completely – just moves them to the trash folder, from which they can be restored if needed (to delete the unused files for good you will also have to empty trash afterwards).
Sorry, this is going to sound dumb but I am very new to Anki–when you say delete images/audio unused is it that they never loaded? Bc I wanted all the content from what I downloaded and worry if I press delete even though I have the card I am missing important info? Is there no way to get it all back?
“Unused” means they exist in your collection, but aren’t being used. That’s extra 12K of files is probably why you have 15 GB of media that your devices and the server are keeping in sync.
Read this to understand how Anki decides what is “unused” – Media - Anki Manual .
The first step only moves the files to media.trash – when you sync, that will remove them from the AnkiWeb server and your other devices – but the files will still be there for you to recover on this device. When you’re confident that was all old media (for instance, from decks you don’t have anymore), you can come back to Empty Trash.
I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “loaded”. Anki cards do not store media files directly inside them, they only reference them via filenames, which you can see in the editor:
The files themselves are stored separately, in your “collection.media” folder.
Missing files are the files that some of the cards reference, but are actually absent in the folder. Unused files are the files that are present in the folder, but do not have any references leading to them.
Files might become unused by multiple reasons. Maybe someone deleted a card which the file was originally intended for, maybe someone decided the file is no longer needed and removed the image/audio from the card keeping the card itself, maybe the file was copied directly to the media folder with the intent to use it in the future, but left it as is, maybe a whole deck containing references to several media files was deleted, etc.
It is also not clear, whether those files came with the decks you downloaded, or whether those are your own files that you’ve experimented with previously or files from decks you’ve previously owned and deleted. Typically, decks exported via File → Export only include files that are used by cards in them, so I’d say the latter is more probable.
You can try deleting the unused files, then run Check Media again and press View Files, then go one level up and enter media.trash folder to see what was in there. If you decide that you need the files, click Restore Deleted in that Check Media window (that button will appear once the trash is not empty). Alternatively, you’ll be able to delete them completely either manually from the opened trash folder, or by pressing Empty Trash button in the Check Media window.