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Kioku

Import from Anki

Import an Anki .apkg deck package so your existing cards become Items in a Collection.

Before you begin

Section titled “Before you begin”
  • The deck must be exported from Anki as a single .apkg file. Kioku imports one package at a time.
  • Any recent Anki version works. Both Anki’s default export and one made with Support older Anki versions ticked import the same way.
  • Importing writes into the active Collection. There is no Collection chooser in the import flow, so switch to the Collection you want before you start.
  • Re-importing the same deck does not merge or update. It creates a duplicate, so import each deck once.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”
  1. In Anki, select the deck (or All Decks), choose File → Export, set the format to Anki Deck Package (*.apkg), and save the file.
  2. In Kioku, choose Import an Anki deck under the Dashboard’s import box (on an empty collection, Import Anki deck (.apkg)). Or open Settings → Data & backups, and in Import & export select Import Anki (.apkg), which shows Importing Anki… while the import runs.
  3. Nested decks keep their shape: a deck called Spanish::Verbs arrives as Verbs inside Spanish.
  4. In the Import Anki Deck file dialog, choose your .apkg file. The picker accepts a single .apkg file. Selecting nothing and cancelling aborts the import with no changes.
  5. Watch the progress bar move through Opening package…, Importing deck media…, Indexing Anki cards…, and Importing notes and cards…, ending at Import complete. Counts such as X/Y notes processed appear once totals are known.
  6. Read the summary: Imported {noteCount} notes, {cardCount} cards from {deckCount} decks. It dismisses on its own after a few seconds.

What carries over

Section titled “What carries over”

Carried over:

  • Decks become groups. Each Anki deck becomes a Concept named for the deck, which groups that deck’s cards together in Browse. Decks are matched by their Anki deck ID, so two decks both named “Science” stay separate.
  • Cards become Items. Every Anki card becomes an Item with one Card underneath it.
  • Basic cards. Each card’s front and back are rendered from its note type’s own templates: fields, conditional sections ({{#Field}}…{{/Field}} and {{^Field}}…{{/Field}}), the special fields {{Tags}}, {{Deck}}, {{Subdeck}}, {{Card}} and {{Type}}, and the text:, furigana:, kana: and kanji: filters. So every field a template shows comes across, pictures and sounds included. Multi-template note types import each card with its own front and back.
    • The back holds what the answer side adds. Kioku already shows the question above the answer, so {{FrontSide}}, and a repeat of the question above <hr id=answer>, are left out.
    • A hint: field stays folded behind its name until you click it, as in Anki.
    • Type-in answers (type:, as in the stock Basic (type in the answer) note type) show the expected answer on the back. There is no box to type into.
    • Anything a template hides with an inline display: none stays hidden.
  • Cloze cards. The original {{c1::...}} markup is preserved verbatim, and one Cloze Card is created per card ordinal. What the question template shows alongside the cloze, such as a sentence’s audio, comes with it. Whatever else the answer template adds, such as Back Extra and its audio, becomes the Card’s Extra.
  • Images. Image files (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .webp, .gif, .avif) referenced by <img> tags are imported, deduplicated, and rewritten to internal media links.
  • Audio. Sounds referenced as [sound:…] (MP3, AAC, Ogg, WAV, FLAC, M4A and WebM) are imported and play in Review as they do in Anki: see Cards with audio.
  • Due dates and approximate scheduling. Each card keeps its due date from Anki, so the cards due in Anki today are due in Kioku today, and overdue cards stay overdue. Anki card state maps to an FSRS state, and review and lapse counts are copied. The remaining scheduling values are estimated from Anki’s ease and interval rather than reconstructed exactly. Suspended and buried cards keep that status.

Not carried over:

  • Tags are dropped silently.
  • Text-to-speech. Anki’s generated speech ({{tts …}} and [anki:tts]) is removed. The import summary says how many card sides used it.
  • Missing sounds. A [sound:…] whose file isn’t in the package is removed rather than shown as text, and counted in the import summary.
  • Video and other media are ignored. References to skipped media stay as their original, now-broken src.
  • Review history is not imported. Only summary counters and an approximate current scheduling state carry over.
  • Card styling and scripts. A note type’s CSS and any JavaScript in its templates are not reproduced. Kioku shows cards in its own style, so content a template hides only through its CSS classes shows.
  • Deck selection and field remapping. There is no per-deck or per-note-type mapping UI; the entire package imports wholesale.

Result

Section titled “Result”

Each Anki deck appears as a Concept in Browse, with its cards beneath it as Items. Basic notes become basic Cards, cloze notes become cloze Cards, and supported images and sounds play and render through Kioku’s media store. The imported Items enter scheduling with an approximate FSRS state and are ready to review.

Section titled “Related”