Request to recover my deleted AnkiWeb collection

Hello,

My AnkiWeb collection appears to have been deleted due to inactivity.

The last AnkiWeb email/message I received was on June 6, 2025. I recently returned to Anki and found that my AnkiWeb collection is empty.

I also checked my AnkiDroid on Android, but the collection is empty there as well, and I could not find any local backups of my collection.

Could you please check whether there is still a server-side backup of my collection that could be restored?

I would really appreciate any help recovering my decks and cards.

Thank you!

Yes, the data was removed from your account in July 2025, after it had been inactive for at least 6 months (just like that email said it would be). We delete the data from accounts in our system that aren’t being used for syncing or studying, so AnkiWeb isn’t suitable for long-term storage of your inactive collection – AnkiWeb account removal - Anki FAQs .

However that policy only affects the data on our servers. If you still have a local copy of your collection on any devices where you used Anki / AnkiMobile / AnkiDroid, you can upload your collection to AnkiWeb and resume syncing. You should really check all of your devices, because your collection should still be on any mobile device where you haven’t uninstalled the app – and on any desktop device, even if you did uninstall the app.

Generally when data is removed from an account, that includes the server-side backups. However there is one that was retained in your account – from January 2025. [Just like a local automatic backup, that does not include any media attached to your collection.] I expect that version of your collection is older than whatever you have on your device(s), but if you want me to restore it to your AnkiWeb account, please confirm.


Other things you can do right now –

  • Make sure the email address you’re using for your AnkiWeb account is one that you have permanent access to. If you lose touch with that email, you won’t get important emails from us – like notification that your data is pending deletion. And if you can’t re-verify your email address annually, you might not be able to access AnkiWeb at all.

  • If you know you’re going to take a long break from studying, you can create your own COLPKG backup of your collection and store that in a separate place (e.g., another device, a cloud storage account).

Yes, please. I confirm that I would like you to restore the January 2025 backup to my AnkiWeb account. Thank you very much!

I’ve restored that to your account. Be sure to download from AnkiWeb on your next sync.