# Old cards remain even though they are no longer in CSV file

**URL:** <https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/old-cards-remain-even-though-they-are-no-longer-in-csv-file/54285>\
**Category:** Suggestions\
**Created:** [January 12, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/old-cards-remain-even-though-they-are-no-longer-in-csv-file/54285 "2025-01-12T16:31:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![Anon\_0000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Anon\_0000](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Anon_0000)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/old-cards-remain-even-though-they-are-no-longer-in-csv-file/54285/2 "2025-01-12T17:56:13Z")

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I use .csv imports too. There are problems with removing cards that are not in an imported .csv file though: Anki has no way of telling whether the cards have been deleted or were part of another .csv (or maybe created in anki via the _add notes_ window). So deleting them will cause undesired behavior for most.  
But maybe the devs here find a good way to do it.

As a workaround:

1. (Keep the cards in the .csv and) suspend them in anki.
2. Use a first field named “ID”. If you ever have to remove a card you can just leave the ID and enter the card info for the other fields (overwritting the previous cards). You’d have to manually _forget_ those cards though, as they’d keep the history otherwise.

Here’s the link to the post you mentioned:

> [@Import cards: an option to remove items that are not found in the import file](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-cards-an-option-to-remove-items-that-are-not-found-in-the-import-file/352):
>
> Hey there! First: thanks for the great product, use it regularly, absolutely happy user! ) Wondering though: there is an option while importing cards from file “Update existing notes when first field matches”. It updates the card with the new notes from the file. Ok. But what about an option to remove existing notes if no matches found in the file? My case is that I regularly update a single deck with new items / new notes, but sometimes want to remove sth from the deck. Just to think: whethe…

> [@Rerbun](#):
>
> I don’t really understand why it was closed

The system auto closes topics if there is no activity. As you can see, the topic had been closed with 2 years without any activity.

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