Hi, I need help recovering Anki media without losing my current tags/collection changes.
What happened:
- On my Mac, I deleted/emptied media in my Anki profile and later replaced files in the profile’s collection.media folder.
- After that, my cards still import/load, but some images are broken/missing.
- It now seems to be mainly the OME images that are not showing.
- My notes, decks, and tags are still there, so I do NOT want to roll back my whole collection if that would lose current tags/changes.
Important:
- I do not have a Time Machine backup.
- I do not have another device/profile with the old intact media.
- I may already have synced after the media changes, so I’m worried the bad media state may have synced to AnkiWeb too.
What I want to know:
- Is there any way to restore the old media only, without replacing my current collection database/tags?
- If the wrong media state already synced, can AnkiWeb staff restore recent media history server-side?
- Since only the OME images appear broken now, is there any targeted way to restore just those missing media files?
- What is the safest next step from here that will not make things worse?
Extra info:
- macOS
- Main concern is preserving my current collection/tags while recovering media
- I can provide Check Media output or example broken HTML/img src lines if needed
Thanks.
I would suggest the following course of action:
- Make a full backup of your current collection by exporting it with all the media (
File → Export → Export format “Anki Collection Package”, 
Include media → Ok). This will make sure you’ll be able to go back to the current state no matter what.
- Wait for the staff reply to find out if an appropriate backup with your older media is available on the server side
- IF it is available, after it is restored, one-way sync on your device downloading from AnkiWeb
- Grab all the media files from the restored collection and put them somewhere outside of Anki on your device. With this, you’ll have the most complete backup data available
- Restore your current collection by importing the package made on step 1
- Copy and paste the files backed up on step 4 into your collection.media folder, skipping the existing ones to fill in the blanks
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Can you say more about how you did that?
- For the “deleted/emptied” step – did you use Anki’s
Check Media > Delete Unused Media process? Or did you go directly to where your collection is stored on your computer and delete the files, and if so – why?
- For the “later replaced” step – what do you mean by that?
Reverting to an automatic backup [or restoring a server-side backup] wouldn’t help you anyway, because those don’t include any of your media.
Your collection database and your media files are stored separately, so nothing about restoring the media files should affect your collection or tags.
It’s possible I can restore it on the server, but give me answers to the above, and the following things –
- Run
Check Media – are the files you’re looking for in the “missing” list?
- That list might include “missing” items that were missing before all this. Do you know approximately how many files you are actually missing due to this situation?
- What are some examples of missing filenames?
- When did the deletion sync to AnkiWeb (which tells me how far back to look)?
I tried all the steps I mentioned earlier and wanted to clarify things more clearly here.
For the “deleted/emptied” step, I went directly to my Anki profile’s collection.media folder on my Mac and deleted/emptied the media there. This was not just from Check Media > Delete Unused Media.
For the “later replaced” step, I mean that afterward I copied media files back into the same collection.media folder manually.
I have also run Check Media, and yes, the files I’m looking for do appear in the “missing” list.
I understand that some missing items may have already been missing before this happened, but there are additional files missing specifically because of this incident. The missing files are ones that were previously working before I deleted/emptied the media.
Some example missing filenames are:
- img src=“paste-23135ce16e719f1f527909f58132d7a72927075b.jpg”
The deletion synced to AnkiWeb around 15th March 2026 9.00 AM
Since I do not want to roll back my whole collection and lose my current database changes/tags, I would really appreciate it if you could restore or provide the media backup from the server if that is possible.
Perhaps it goes without saying, but you shouldn’t do that. If you want Anki to have that media, don’t delete it. Hopefully it is obvious to you that you shouldn’t do that again in the future.
If you restored the media files you deleted, they wouldn’t be missing.
As I said – you can’t get these media files back by restoring a backup.
What I can do is restore media that was recently deleted from your account on AnkiWeb. Given the timeline we’re talking about, I’ll start with media deleted in the past 5 days. Because this can cause some syncing conflicts, please make sure that all of your devices are fully in sync with AnkiWeb first, and then confirm that you want me to proceed with this.
Even just on that short timeline, it looks like several thousand files, so restoring will take time. I’ll update you when it is completed.
I’ve restored 7912 files that were deleted in the past 5 days. On your next sync, your media will be rescanned, and those files will be downloaded. It’s over 1.2 GB of files, so it might take some time or a few tries to complete the media sync (which will be going on in the background – see Syncing with AnkiWeb - Anki Manual and the related video for how to check that progress). When it’s done, you can run Check Media and see how that compares.
Just to be sure, my Ankiweb account is lazithd@gmail.com
That would have been important information to have before!
I restored media in the account linked to the email address you used to post here [I won’t post the address, but I know you have it]. So, whose account is that – or do you have multiple AnkiWeb accounts that you’ve deleted thousands of media files from in the past few days?
The lazithd@gmail.com AnkiWeb account has over 5 GB of media already – are you sure you’re missing even more media? I can restore the media there, but it’s at least 10K more files, so please confirm that you want that.
Just this please - lazithd@gmail.com - I confirm.
Okay, I’ve now restored 114K more files that were deleted from that account in the past week. As above, you’ll have to download all of them on your next sync – and it’s about 10 GB more, so plan that it will take some time.
You didn’t answer any of my questions about the accounts, so I assume the other one is fine. For both accounts, when you have everything restored that you need, and your devices are completely in sync, you really need to run Check Media > Delete Unused Media and sync again to remove the unnecessary files from the servers.
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I’m going to need to know more than that.
- Have you re-downloaded all of that media from AnkiWeb?
- Has nothing gotten better, or is just this one file missing?
- Is this a file you know you had before?
- What file is it?
- Is it still listed as missing in Check Media?
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It’s syncing now, I shall let you know! 
Hi it’s successful, tysm!
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