Importing decks

Recall supports importing a deck package, as well as decks from Anki and Quizlet.

From a deck package

A deck package is a .zip file holding a whole deck: its fields, layouts, cards, media files and review history. You can import a deck package to re-create the deck as it was.

A package can weigh up to 500MB. The structure of a deck package is documented in the API reference.

If reviews are included in the package and you want to import them, keep the Include the review history ticked.

The spaced repetition algorithm will take all the reviews into account to calculate the new intervals.

The reviews will also be taken into account in your dashboard's heatmap. However, the deck's progress charts are not reconstructed retroactively. They will resume from the import date.

From Anki

You can upload an Anki package (.apkg) to study the deck in Recall.

Import Anki deck

While Anki and Recall share many similar features, there are a few differences in terminology:

  • A note in Anki is called a card in Recall.
  • A card in Anki is called a card variant in Recall.
  • A card template in Anki is called a card layout in Recall.

There is also a key structural difference: in Recall, the deck defines the data structure of cards. When importing an Anki deck containing multiple note types, Recall will create a deck for each.

See Recall's key concepts.

Keeping your review history

You may also import the review history that you can include in your Anki package when you export it. To do so, leave Include the review history ticked.

The spaced repetition algorithm will take all the reviews into account to calculate the new intervals for a smooth transition.

The reviews will also be taken into account in your dashboard's heatmap. However, the deck's progress charts are not reconstructed retroactively. They will resume from the import date.

Adapting the design of imported cards

Once you've imported a deck, we recommend reviewing the deck's card layout(s) to decide which fields should be displayed and their style.

Limitations

There are a few limitations when importing from Anki:

  • Distinct cloze deletions ({{c1::...}}, {{c2::...}}, etc.) on the same card are not supported. All text is hidden at the same time, instead of creating a card variant for each cloze deletion.
  • Cloze deletions on images are not supported.
  • HTML, CSS, and JS in cards are not supported. Only basic elements like bold, italic, images, and links will be preserved in rich content fields.
  • The maximum number of cards is currently limited to 5,000, which prevents importing large Anki decks.

From Quizlet

Import Quizlet deck

You can import flashcard set in Quizlet by copying and pasting its URL. Since Recall needs to access Quizlet to fetch the cards, it may take a few minutes to complete.

A deck imported from Quizlet has "Front" and "Back" rich content fields. If there are images in the set, they are imported in an additional "Image" field.

Currently, only sets not exceeding 500 cards can be imported.