How to Sort Anki Cards by Date in the Browser
In Anki Desktop, sort Browse by Created to put the oldest or newest notes first. Search added:1 to find cards added today. The distinction matters if you add a reverse card today to a note you made last week.
Sort the Created column in Browse
- Open Browse. Select a deck in the sidebar, or clear the search box and press Enter to see the whole collection.
- Right-click a column header (or Ctrl-click on Mac) and enable Created.
- Click Created to sort. Click it again to reverse the order. Compare the dates at the top and bottom to check which direction you’re looking at.
Use the switch beside the search box to choose Cards for one row per flashcard or Notes for one row per note. A note holds the fields you enter, such as a French word and its translation. Anki can make several cards from those fields, and Created shows the note’s date on every one of those rows. Anki’s Browser columns
Find recently added cards
Switch to Cards, enter one of these searches in Browse, and press Enter.
| Search | What it finds |
|---|---|
added:1 |
Cards added today |
added:7 |
Cards added in the last seven days |
deck:"French Vocabulary" added:7 |
Cards added in the last seven days in that deck or its subdecks |
The search uses each card’s own creation time. If you sort the results by Created, Anki orders the matching rows by their notes’ dates. Anki’s Added search
To check the exact date, select the card in Cards mode, open Cards → Info, and read Added. In Notes mode, added:1 can show a note when any of its cards matches, while Info opens for the note’s first card. If the date looks surprising, switch to Cards and select the specific row. Card Info · How Anki selects the current card
Why a new reverse card can show an older date
A test in a disposable Anki collection used two French vocabulary notes. Note A (la gare, “the train station”) and its forward card were backdated to November 1. On November 10, the test added note B (le quai, “the platform”) with one forward card, then filled Add Reverse on note A. In Cards mode, ascending Created order gave these rows.
| Card | Created in Browse | Added in Card Info | Matches added:1 on Nov 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A forward | Nov 1 | Nov 1 | No |
| A reverse | Nov 1 | Nov 10 | Yes |
| B forward | Nov 10 | Nov 10 | Yes |
With added:1 active, A reverse appeared above B forward even though the test had generated B forward first that day. A’s older note date put it first. Notes mode showed A and B, in that order, because each had a matching card.
To try it in a separate Anki profile, create a Basic (optional reversed card) note with Add Reverse blank. On a later Anki day, enter y in that field. Then search added:1 in Cards mode and compare the reverse card’s Created and Added dates. How Anki generates reverse cards
Change study order in deck options
Sorting in Browse rearranges the table. To look through the cards in that order, select the first row in Cards mode, open Preview, and step through the cards. Anki’s FAQ on browsing in a particular order
If you want Anki to introduce new cards in a certain order during a study session, use the deck’s new-card gather and sort settings.
AI assisted with this article. The disposable collection test ran with Python package anki 26.9.4, Python 3.13.17, and macOS 26.6.1 on ARM64. The desktop steps were checked against Anki’s manual and released UI source. The illustration is AI-generated. Anki 26.09.4 release