Anki learning steps: what they do and which settings to use

Learning steps are the short, same-session delays a new card goes through before Anki starts scheduling it in days. Relearning steps are the same thing for a card you've forgotten. The defaults, 1m 10m for learning and 10m for relearning, suit most decks; if you use FSRS, keep every step under a day.

With the defaults, you see a new card, see it again about a minute later, then again about ten minutes later, and if you press Good on that last step the card "graduates" and comes back tomorrow.

What each button does on a learning card

With the default steps of 1m 10m, a graduating interval of 1 day and an easy interval of 4 days:

With only one learning step, Hard on that step gives 1.5 times the step instead (at most a day longer than the step itself).

Once a card has graduated, the buttons work differently; Again, Hard, Good, Easy explained covers when to press each one on a review card.

Ease isn't touched while a card is in learning. The card gets its starting ease (250% by default) when it graduates; ease is explained here.

Relearning: what happens after Again on a review card

Press Again on a card you'd already learned and it:

1. Loses 20 points of ease (SM-2 only).
2. Goes through the relearning steps: 10 minutes by default.
3. Returns to reviews with a new interval: the old interval × New interval (default 0%), but never less than the Minimum interval (default 1 day). With the defaults, every lapse restarts the card at 1 day.

If you leave the relearning steps blank, the card skips straight to that new interval. Anki relearning steps covers what each button does while a card is relearning, and which settings to use.

Steps of a day or more

You can write steps like 1d or 3d. A step that crosses into the next day is converted to days, so a "10m 1d" card is seen once more today and once tomorrow before it graduates. Two things to know:

• With SM-2, a 1d step and a 1-day graduating interval overlap: the card is seen tomorrow as a learning card and then again the day after as a review. People who use day-long steps usually raise the graduating interval to match.
• With FSRS, Anki's manual says to keep all learning and relearning steps shorter than 1 day, so they can be finished the same day. FSRS chooses the day-scale intervals itself; day-long steps override it.

Settings that work

Keep the default 1m 10m unless you have a reason to change it. The manual recommends keeping steps to a minimum: seeing a card many times on the same day does little for long-term memory, and every extra step is another forced review.

If many new cards fail at their first 1-day review, the jump from 10 minutes to a day is too big for that material. Add one more same-day step (for example 1m 10m 1h), or learn fewer new cards a day so each one gets more attention; see how many new cards per day.

Don't make the first step long. Because Hard on the first step averages the first two steps, a long first step can make Hard show a longer delay than Good. Anki's manual warns about this.

Avoid long ladders such as 1m 5m 10m 30m 1h 1d 3d. They feel thorough but turn every new card into seven forced reviews, most of them before the card has had time to be forgotten at all. That's the opposite of what spacing is for; see why spaced study feels harder when it works better and spaced repetition vs cramming.

Learn ahead. When the only cards left are learning cards that aren't due yet, Anki shows them early if they're due within the learn-ahead limit (Preferences, 20 minutes by default). That's why you sometimes see a "10 minute" card again after two.

Where the settings are

Deck Options: Learning steps and Graduating interval / Easy interval are under New Cards; Relearning steps and Minimum interval under Lapses. Options apply to every deck that uses the same preset, so make a new preset if you only want to change one deck.

In Decks

Decks uses Anki's default steps (1m 10m to learn, 10m to relearn, graduating at 1 day) and they can't be changed. Two buttons behave differently from Anki: on a learning card, Hard moves to the next step like Good does, and Easy on a new card graduates it to 1 day rather than 4. How spaced repetition works in Decks has the full schedule.