How many new cards per day in Anki, and how to choose

For most people, 10 to 20 new cards a day in Anki is right. Anki's default is 20 new cards a day, with a limit of 200 reviews a day. A simple rule: each new card a day turns into about 10 reviews a day later on, so 20 new cards means roughly 200 reviews (that's the figure Anki's manual gives). Pick the number whose reviews you could still get through on a busy day, months from now. If you're not sure, start at 10 and adjust after a few weeks.

What a new card costs

A new card isn't one review. With the default settings, a card you rate Good each time is seen twice more on its first day (the learning steps), then at gaps of about 1, 3, 8 and 20 days, and so on. Each day's new cards stack on top of the earlier ones, so your reviews keep climbing for weeks after you set the number.

Scaling the manual's 20-to-200 rule of thumb gives a rough idea of where you'll end up. The minutes column assumes 8 seconds a review; Anki's Stats screen shows your own average, so substitute it.

These are rough. Hard material, many lapses, or low ease push reviews higher; FSRS and easy material bring them down.

How to choose

1. Start from time, not ambition. Decide how many minutes you'll study on a bad day, and read across the table.
2. Then check the length of the deck. At 20 a day, a 2,000-word deck like Japanese Core 2000 takes 100 days to introduce; at 10 a day, 200. A slower pace you finish beats a fast one you abandon.
3. Adjust after three or four weeks, once the reviews from your first new cards have arrived. Before that, the review count is misleadingly low.

The settings in Anki

New cards/day and Maximum reviews/day are in Deck Options under Daily Limits. Anki maximum reviews per day covers the review limit in more detail.

• Presets. Limits belong to an options preset, shared by every deck that uses it. The This deck and Today only tabs override the preset for one deck, permanently or just for today.
• Subdecks. Each subdeck's limit caps how many cards come from that subdeck; the limit on the deck you click caps the total.
• The review limit also stops new cards. By default, once you reach Maximum reviews/day, Anki shows no new cards that day. The New cards ignore review limit option turns that off.

That last rule is useful. If a backlog builds, new cards stop on their own instead of making it worse. It's also a reason not to set Maximum reviews/day low to make a backlog look smaller. Reviews over the limit don't go away; they wait, and become overdue.

Signs to lower it

• Your due count goes up week after week even though you study every day.
• You're pressing Again noticeably more often than you used to.
• You're hitting the review limit, so new cards have stopped anyway.

Lowering new cards, even to zero for a week, is the fastest fix, because reviews of existing cards keep coming but nothing is added on top. What to do when reviews pile up covers clearing a backlog.

Common numbers

• 5 to 10 a day: a second language, a busy stretch, or hard material such as kanji or Chinese characters.
• 15 to 20 a day: Anki's default; a steady pace if you have about half an hour.
• 30 or more: exam crunch or full-time study. Plan for the reviews before you commit. Adding cards fast in the last week before an exam is closer to cramming than spaced repetition.

The same reasoning applies outside Anki; how many new flashcards to study per day covers it without the settings.

What to spend new cards on

For a new language, the most common words pay off first. Starting points: the most common Spanish words, the most common Chinese words, and for Japanese, the hiragana chart before any vocabulary. Where to find good Anki decks covers ready-made decks, and the best Anki settings for language learning covers the other settings for a vocabulary deck. Flashcards are good for words and scripts, not for listening or speaking; do flashcards work for language learning? covers how to fit them in.

Common questions

How do I change how many new cards I get a day?

Click the gear icon next to the deck on the Decks screen and choose Options, or select the deck and click Options at the bottom. Set New cards/day under Daily Limits and save. The new number applies to every deck that uses the same preset.

When does Anki reset for the day?

At 4am by default, not midnight, so a late-night session doesn't count as two days. Today's new cards and reviews appear at that hour. Why Anki's day starts at 4am covers how to change it.

Why am I getting fewer new cards than my limit?

Usually because you've reached Maximum reviews/day, which also stops new cards by default, or because a subdeck has a lower limit of its own. Both are explained under the settings above.

In Decks

Decks also defaults to 20 new cards a day. You can set it in Settings from 5 to 100, or no limit, and it's one limit shared across all your decks rather than one per deck.