# 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\
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**Author:** ![Danika\_Dakika](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/danika_dakika/32/17815_2.png) [@Danika\_Dakika](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Danika_Dakika)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2025, 11:15pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/old-cards-remain-even-though-they-are-no-longer-in-csv-file/54285/3 "2025-01-12T23:15:12Z")

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It would definitely be an undesired behavior for notes to be deleted just because they aren’t in the current CSV you’re importing. 😬 Yikes!

But there are easy ways to deal with this – add [a tags column](https://docs.ankiweb.net/importing/text-files.html#file-headers) to your CSV. Instead of deleting those the rows from your CSV, tag them `DELETE`, then after you import the file, delete those notes from Anki, and delete those rows from your CSV.

Or if you don’t want to add a column, just add a unique string in a certain field.

> [@Completely syncrhonizing decks during import](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/completely-syncrhonizing-decks-during-import/48809/3):
>
> A feature that deletes content that’s not in a file you’re importing feels like a footgun, and I’m not sure about its inclusion into the program. If you frequently find yourself deleting material from your source of truth, one alternative you could use is to edit the material to add “delete me” or similar instead of removing it. You could then locate those cards in the browse screen and suspend them.

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