Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to use less cell data for when I’m travelling and paying for the data I use etc.
The app that uses the most data (51 gb this period, even more than navigation, spotify, etc), according to my phone, is Anki, and I actually have no idea why. I almost always sync on wifi at home, and only use anki to do reviews when I’m out.
I don’t even use any images. The main deck I use is a Japanese vocabulary deck with text and audio. I also have other decks with text and audio, and one with lots of images, but it actually uses online images so they aren’t stored on my device. All of this combined is less than 3 gb of storage on my phone. I’ve checked and deleted unused media, too.
I’m guessing this could be because backups, but why would it use so much data? Is it backing up all of my media too? I only need it to backup my reviews I’ve done on my phone. I very rarely add or edit cards on AnkiMobile, and save that for PC.
Is there something I’m missing/not realizing about how Anki syncs or backs up? Can I change how it behaves somehow to reduce data usage? Thanks
Maybe this is the root of your problem:
it actually uses online images so they aren’t stored on my device.
If you want to analyze size of your collection and individual notes better (on Anki Desktop), you can use “Note Size” addon.
Is that audio from media files stored on your device, or TTS being read to you while you study?
As aleks_ya said: online images means you’re using data.
Your backups don’t leave your device, so they wouldn’t be using any of your data. (And they don’t include your data.)
Thanks for this, I assumed they did for some reason. Given that I don’t usually sync when I’m on data, and backups don’t even use data, I think it was entirely in the online images.
The odd thing is that I only do about 5 cards a day nowadays with the rather mature deck that has the online images, and usually at home. I think that for some reason, Anki would load large amounts of media from that deck even when not reviewing the deck and displaying them.
Because I rarely use it, I’m going to try exporting and deleting the deck for a bit and see if that solves it. Thank you!
You can use https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1293255374 to convert remote image links into local ones, which will ensure you use no data after the images have been synced to your device.