Problem with having more then one profile

I have a profile for Chinese and decided to make a separate profile for Korean to separate the two subjects. I know this is a rookie move but I think I can get by since I am only going to use Anki for just those 2 subjects. I realize I can’t sync two profiles to the same anki web account so I had made a different email for the Korean profile and tried to sync it to its own ankiweb but a weird sign pops up saying if I want to upload or download to the ankiweb. Either one I click it literally replaces and deletes the other profile (after getting back the profile from backups) I have no clue why anki will still not let me sync them to their specified ankiweb because I had made two SEPARATE emails. Anyone know why this happens?

I use anki for Chinese learning and have spent hours and months editing and adding new things to each card. I recently have put a new profile so that I can have a profile for Korean learning. For Chinese, it was set up in a way so that every time I closed the software it would automatically sync. I tried to sync and do the same for Korean so that every time I closed it the data will sync as well. Although, I clicked “upload to ankiweb” and it stared to sync every time I closed the Korea profile so I thought it was fine. I switched over to the profile with Chinese flashcards cards to do some reviewing but for some reason EVERYTHING got replaced to my Korean deck and now I have two Korean profiles with one having the name of what was supposed to be the chines flashcards. I didn’t know that you couldn’t sync two profiles at the same time to ankiweb! Does anyone know what happened to the Chinese Flashcards? Is there a way to get the Chinese cards back? Has everything I have done for the Chinese Flashcards been erased just like that??

have you tried restoring from local backups?
anki keeps 50 local backups for each profile by default.

click on “open backup…” on profile screen and see if you can get your cards back
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make sure to copy all these backups to some other drive before trying to restore (just to make sure you don’t mess them up trying to restore)
(located in: C:\Users\ USER \AppData\Roaming\Anki2\ PROFILE NAME)

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Also: https://faqs.ankiweb.net/restoring-an-automatic-backup-recovering-from-data-loss.html

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Okay Thank you guys for the help! I just clicked on the last time the file was fine and opened the file and it seems to be back to normal.

On a side note I have another quick question regarding what previously happened. Is if there anyway I can have a profile for Korean? I realized that I can’t sync them both to the ankiweb because one will just replace and delete the other. Still, is there a way I can have SEPARATE profiles one for Chinese Flashcards and one for Korean? Or will I have to make a new email and keep logging/signing in to switch between Chinese and Korean.

Please see https://faqs.ankiweb.net/synchronizing-multiple-profiles.html

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Thank you but I remember checking out that page before I posted my question. I made two different profiles as well as two different emails to correspond to them. Although, anki still won’t allow me to let each one of them sync every time I switch to a different profile. A weird sign keeps popping up asking if I want to download or upload to ankiweb. No matter which option I click the result is one of the profiles gets replaced and deleted even though they both are linked to separate emails.

That sounds like you are syncing both profiles to the same account. You can check the email you are logged in as in the preferences screen.

Okay so I did what you said by going to preferences and clicking the network tab on both profiles and yes to confirm they are both linked to different accounts. Although, when I tired to switch from profile to profile the weird sign would still pop up (I uploaded a pic down below) and it wouldn’t sync the Korean profile which is the new profile I made a different email for.

On a side note - I searched ‘anki login’ and logged in with both my accounts. For the email I used for Chinese all my decks are shown and it seems everything is there. When I tried using the email I used for Korean to login I can get into the account BUT the deck I have downloaded isn’t there but instead a default with nothing in it. Its like I never downloaded any decks. Could this be what the problem is?

.Anki Forum Question

You are likely getting that message from when you previously synced both profiles to the one account. Please read https://docs.ankiweb.net/#/syncing?id=conflicts

You will need to restore from an automatic backup if you have lost data, then make sure you upload the good data rather than downloading.

I actually did happen to make the mistake of trying to upload both of those profiles to the same ankiweb. One of the profiles replaced and deleted the other. I found a way to get back the deleted profile by opening the backups but in doing so I had to delete the other profile. It wasn’t to big of a deal since the deck was fairly new and it was a shared deck I downloaded. After I created a new account (email for anikweb) since I had deleted the other profile I tired to make it again with a separate email this time. I am still confused why it shows me that message and won’t allow me to sync both profiles if I used a different email AND made a new profile since I deleted the previous one.

EDIT: Ah! Okay so when the message popped up again after I pressed the sync button instead of canceling it or clicking download (I didn’t press upload afraid it uploading and the other profile being replaced and lost) I ended up pressing the upload button for the new profile and it worked! This time the Korean learning profile went to the new email I created instead of going to the Chinese learning email and deleting the Chinese profile. If anything did go wrong though and the same mistake were to repeat itself, I made sure to sync the latest decks and then drag the file to my desktop so that way if any profiles got replaced then I could just get it back by opening the backup file I dragged and dropped into my desktop. They both seem to be syncing to their designated emails. When I log into both emails on ‘anki web’ they both seem to still be there and in their separate accounts. Thank you for sticking with me I know it is really confusing to explain over text. Really appreciate it!

is there any reason for you not to use one profile for both Chinese and Korean? it’s not like the cards would get mixed, you can use decks to organize them.

I thought that if they were together the data/statistics would mix together so I just thought it would be better off in separate profiles.

Anki separates statistics for each deck. so if you have a deck for Chinese and a deck for Korean, you can review the stats for each of them separately.

New stats (In beta):
image

Old stats:
image

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Oh wow okay I didn’t know this. With my Chinese, there are actually multiple decks (grammar, vocab, pronunciation, etc) and sub decks for those decks. It is from a paid course where I have to download every 5 or so levels for the grammar/vocab part. Should I still put my Korean decks in the same profile or just have them separate like they are already? Will doing so mess up the order of the Chinese decks since I every so often still have to download a new set of levels?

you can make a parent deck for Chinese and move all the Chinese decks to that parent deck. order of the decks in that general parent deck will be as like when they’re in the separate profile (order of the deck inside the parent deck will be alphabetical)
the same happens to the Korean decks.

here are some images to demonstrate what you can do:
image


but i recommend using using tags instead of so many subdecks. for example you can have one deck for Chinese vocab and instead of having subdecks for each lesson’s vocabs just tag them.
in this way you have all your Chinese vocab cards in one deck but you’re also able to tell which cards is for which lesson based on it’s tag.

Using tags + subdecks

You can also use the subdecks system alongside with the tagging system.
you can tag all Chinese cards with “Chinese” tag, all Chinese vocabs with “C_Vocab”, grammar with “C_Grammar”
and about Korean cards with “Korean” tag, vocab with “K_Vocab”, grammar with “K_Grammar”.
but it’s not necessary

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Ah okay will do thank you so much for this explanation!

I appreciate your input regarding how to separate cards for two languages. I am in the same boat, where I prefer to look at a separate statistics summary for each of the two languages I am studying. One language had over 500+ lists, because it I had to build them in excel as an intermediate step. I don’t want the “cards due” for one language to mix with the other. As I have about 50 lists of new cards to bring into Anki, making 1 big list which will include 10,000 new cards feels like a really bad idea. Is there really no way to sync the second profile in the AnkiDesktop software with a second AnkiWeb account and the second profile in AnkiMobile? That would let me separate the stats from multiple foreign languages. If the stats aren’t separated, they really would do me much good. Thank you!!

Why don’t you just separate the languages into different decks, as explained in the previous post?

It’s much easier, and it’s the recommended way of doing what you want to do.
https://faqs.ankiweb.net/synchronizing-multiple-profiles.html

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