Anki Playlists turns the subdecks of any deck into a playlist. You choose the order once. After that, you just press Continue. Each subdeck gets a few passes and a quick retell from memory, and it remembers exactly where you stopped.
Made for Sketchy and Pixorize. Works for languages, anatomy, pharm, biochem, textbook chapters, anything split into subdecks.
Try it. This is the box that sits on your Anki home screen. Press Continue a few times.
New to it? The steps below use real screenshots and take you from install to your first study session. Setup is about 5 minutes. Every day after that is one button.
Some decks come as one giant pile, and some come split into subdecks: one per video, lesson, drug class or chapter. The best way to learn those is to hammer one subdeck in before you move on, then mix them all together once they've stuck.
Anki doesn't really do that. You open a subdeck, finish it, hunt for the next one, and try to remember what you already covered. I hit this with Sketchy and Pixorize, where the whole point is seeing each video more than once. So I made a playlist for it.
It works on any parent deck with subdecks:
A word about “video”. The add-on calls every subdeck a “video”, because that's how Sketchy and Pixorize are built. In your own deck, a “video” is just a subdeck. Read it as “subdeck” everywhere.
About a minute. Needs Anki 23.12 or newer (Help → About shows your version).
In Anki, go to Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons…, paste the code 1975658769, and click OK.
Press Cmd + Q on a Mac (just closing the window isn't enough). On Windows, close Anki from the system tray.
Tools → Anki Playlists… The shortcut is Cmd + Option + O on a Mac and Ctrl + Alt + O on Windows.
Your progress is safe. Playlists and progress are saved in your Anki collection, not in the add-on. They sync between your computers and survive updates.
Had my earlier file version? You don't need to do anything. The AnkiWeb copy takes over and the old one switches itself off. You can delete the old one from the Add-ons list to keep things tidy.
Six steps, about five minutes. You only do this once per playlist.
In Anki, click Tools → Anki Playlists… (or press Cmd + Option + O on a Mac, Ctrl + Alt + O on Windows). A window opens. You'll work from the top to the bottom of it.
At the very top, next to 1. Playlist, press ＋ New playlist. Give it a short name you'll recognise, like “HIV drugs”, “Gram positives” or “Spanish unit 3”. Each playlist keeps its own order and progress, so you can have as many as you like.
Click the long box under the buttons and start typing the name of the parent deck: the deck that holds the subdecks you want. A list drops down. Click the one you want, then press the blue Add all its videos button on the right. You can do this again with other decks to add more.
In a hurry? ⚡ Quick start sits under the deck box. It builds a playlist from all of that deck's videos and starts it right away, skipping steps 4 and 5. Skip it when you want to choose or reorder.
Every video appears with a green tick. Green tick = it's in. Click a box to untick the ones you don't want. To change the order, drag a row up or down, or select one and press ▲ or ▼. The line under the list tells you how many are ticked. Only ticked videos are used.
Videos marked (old) or (retired) are added unticked, so they stay out of your way.
Scroll down to 4. How should your passes go? You can leave everything as it is on day 1, because the defaults are good. If you want to choose:
| Setting | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pass order | Round by round (recommended): pass 1 of every video, then pass 2 of every video. It spaces your repeats out, which helps things stick. Pass by pass: all the passes of one video, then the next video. Good for brand-new, confusing videos. |
| Rounds | How many times you go through each video's cards. Default 3. Use 2 for easy videos. |
| Today | Do all the rounds now, or stop after 1 (or 2) rounds and come back later. |
| Start with a priming round | Tick it and Start first shows the new cards as a preview before you watch. Nothing is counted. Then it tells you to go watch, and when you come back and press Start the real rounds begin. Seeing the material first helps the video stick. |
| Light day | One pass of one video, then stop. For days when one video is all you've got. It isn't remembered, so next time starts normally. |
Scroll to the end and press the big blue ▶ Save & start playlist. Anki takes you to the study screen with your first video's cards. If you forgot to name the playlist, it asks.
Not ready to study yet? Press Save at the top instead. The playlist is kept for later.
While it runs, the cards you're studying sit in a temporary deck called Anki Playlists. When you stop or finish, they go back to their own decks. Your decks are never changed.
That's the hard part done. You never have to do it again for this playlist.
Open Tools → Anki Playlists…, click the box next to 1. Playlist at the top, pick your playlist from the drop-down, and press ▶ Start. Or skip the window entirely and press Continue on your Anki home screen.
At the top of each card: the video name, then Video 1/2 (blue), 13 left (light blue) and pass 1/2 (yellow). You always know where you are and how far from the finish. You can change the colours in Advanced.
Study like normal with Again, Hard, Good and Easy. In pass 1 your answers count as real reviews. In passes 2 and 3 it's practice, so your schedule isn't touched and you can see the cards as many times as you like.
On practice cards, Good and Easy say “(end)”. That just means you're done with that card for this pass. Cards you miss come back in a short redo round at the end of the pass.
After a pass, it pauses before the next video. This is the part that makes the video stick: you retell it from memory before you see the picture. Here's a real one, from a Sketchy video on heart failure drugs.
If you chose the picture first style, the video's picture shows for a moment. Take it in, then press Space. Skip this step in the other styles.
The picture is hidden. Say the whole video out loud, type it in the box, or sketch it on paper: the story, the characters, the details. Gaps are useful, because they're what the next pass is for. Nothing you type is saved. There's no timer unless you turn one on, so take your time, then press Space.
The picture comes back. Compare it to what you said. What did you forget? That's what you'll look for in the next pass. Press Space or Continue to move on.
You get a clear stopping point after each pass, so you never have to decide in the middle. Space keeps going. Esc stops for now and tomorrow you press Continue. It also tells you what's up next.
Space or Good moves to the next step. Esc skips the break. The style, timer and when it shows are all in Advanced settings.
| Deck | Which picture shows |
|---|---|
| Sketchy | The “Entire Sketch” of that video. |
| Pixorize and others | Any picture in the card's Extra fields (Extra 5 is checked first). If none is found, you just get the retell step. |
If you missed more than 50% of a video on its last pass, it offers one extra pass for that video. You can say no.
When the preview is done, this appears. Go watch the videos, then press Start again for the real rounds.
Open Anki and look at the Playlists box on your deck list. It sits below your decks by default. Each playlist shows its progress and one big button.
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| Round 2 of 3 · 4 / 10 videos | Where you are. The three little pills are your rounds. |
| Continue (or Start) | Carry on with the next batch of videos. |
| 1 video | Light day: one pass of the next video, then stop. |
| Mix (green) | Every round is done. Mix your finished videos. |
| ⋯ | Edit the playlist, retire it (hide it but keep your progress), or delete it. |
| ＋ New / edit | Opens the playlist window. |
Once every round is done, the playlist shows a green Mix. You have options, and none of them is wrong. Do whatever works for you:
Keep the playlist and press Mix. It shuffles the cards of your finished subdecks so you practise telling similar things apart.
You've hammered the subdecks in, so study the parent deck like normal Anki. The playlist isn't needed anymore.
In the ⋯ menu, choose Retire. It disappears from your home screen but keeps all your progress. You can bring it back any time.
In the ⋯ menu, choose Delete when you're really done. It only removes the playlist. Your cards are never deleted.
I use Onigiri too, and the two work together. Onigiri builds its own home screen, so you place the Playlists widget yourself in Onigiri's settings (look for “Anki Playlists” in its home-screen widgets). Everything else works the same.
Not sure what to set? Tell it what today looks like.
Rule of thumb: new and confusing, go one video at a time. Mostly familiar, go round by round. Already know it, mix, or study the parent deck.
Three videos (A, B, C) and two passes each:
| Style | Order you study in | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Round by round (default) | A1 → B1 → C1 → A2 → B2 → C2 | Spacing things out and keeping everything warm. |
| Pass by pass | A1 → A2 → B1 → B2 → C1 → C2 | New or confusing videos you want solid before moving on. |
| Studying | Each subdeck is | Try |
|---|---|---|
| Anatomy | A region | Pass by pass, 2 rounds. Mix regions before a practical. |
| Pharm | A drug class | Round by round, 3 rounds. Mix classes later. |
| Biochem | A pathway | Pass by pass until it clicks, then mix. |
| Rotation shelf | A topic | One playlist per rotation. |
Under step 5 in the window, press Advanced settings to see these. Search to jump to one.
Nothing matches that. Try a shorter word.
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Include new cards / due reviews | What pass 1 shows. Leave both on to learn the whole video. | On / On |
| Redo the cards I got wrong | After a pass, replays the cards you pressed Again on. Practice only. | On |
| Keep going or stop screen | A “Nice work” screen after each pass. Space keeps going, Esc stops for now. | On |
| Suggest an extra pass | If you miss more than this much of a video on its last pass, it offers one more pass. Set it to “never” to turn it off. | 50% |
| Only study the next N videos | For huge playlists: you only see the next few unfinished videos at a time. Continue gives you the next batch. | All |
| Preview mix | When you mix finished videos, include cards that aren't due, as extra practice that doesn't change your schedule. | Off |
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Style | Type it, say it out loud, sketch it on paper, or picture first (look, hide, retell, compare). | Type it |
| Timer / no timer | A countdown in seconds (0 skips the retelling and just shows the picture), or no timer at all. | 60 s |
| Show it after… | Every pass, the learn pass only, or a video's last pass. | Every pass |
| Show the video's picture | After the retell, shows the Entire Sketch (Sketchy) or the picture from the Extra field (Pixorize). | On |
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Study bar colours | Pick a colour for Video x/y, cards left and pass. Each has a darker shade in light mode so it stays readable. There's also a bold tick-box. | Blue, light blue, yellow |
| Playlists box style | Solid light-blue box, transparent tint, transparent outline, plain text, or hidden. | Solid blue |
| Playlists box position | Bottom or top of your deck list. Theme add-ons like Onigiri place it themselves. | Bottom |
| How many playlists to show | 3 most recent by default. Choose 5, 10 or all. A tick-box adds a “show all playlists” link. | 3 |
| Text size | Makes this add-on's windows bigger or smaller. | 100% |
| Button | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Save settings | Saves everything in the window. Closing the window also saves. | Bottom row, and end of Advanced |
| Stop session | Puts the cards of a session that's still open back in their own decks. | Bottom row |
| Mix ready videos | Shuffles the cards of your finished, ticked videos so you practise telling similar things apart. | Bottom row |
| Delete playlist… | Removes the playlist (it asks first). Never deletes your cards. | Bottom row |
| Reset passes | Starts the ticked videos over from pass 0. Handy before a board review. | Step 4 |
| Copy debug log | Copies a troubleshooting log you can send me. | End of Advanced |
| Do this | Mac | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Open Anki Playlists | Cmd + Option + O | Ctrl + Alt + O |
| Continue where you left off | Cmd + Option + S | Ctrl + Alt + S |
| Recall break: reveal or continue | Good, or Space, Enter, 2, 3, 4. Esc skips. | |
Only pass 1 counts as real reviewing. The extra passes are practice.
| Pass | What you see | Changes your schedule? |
|---|---|---|
| Pass 1 | Every new card in the video (no daily limit) plus due reviews. | Yes. Counts as your normal reviews. |
| Pass 2, 3… | Every card in the video, in order. | No. Practice only. |
| Redo round | Cards you got wrong (Again) in that pass. | No. Practice only. |
| Priming round | A preview of the new cards, before you watch. | No. Not counted at all. |
In practice passes, Again brings a card back in about 1 minute, Hard in about 10, and Good means done for this pass. If you stop mid-pass, you repeat that pass next time (a practice pass you leave early isn't counted).
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Playlist | A saved list of videos in your order. Make one per topic. Progress on each is kept separately. |
| Pass | One full trip through every card of one video. You choose how many (default 3). |
| Round | One pass of every video in your list. |
| Recall break | A pause after a pass. You retell the video, then the picture shows so you can check. |
| Batch | The next few unfinished videos. Finish it and Continue gives you the next, so a 30-video playlist never feels like 30. |
| Priming round | An optional preview of the new cards before you watch the videos. |
| Ready to mix | A video that finished all its passes. |
I'm a med student, not a researcher. These are the ideas I built it around, so it isn't just my opinion.
| Idea | What research shows | Where it shows up here |
|---|---|---|
| Priming (pretesting) | Trying to answer questions, or just seeing them, before you learn something improves later memory, even when you get them wrong (Richland et al., 2009). | The priming round before you watch. |
| Retrieval practice | Pulling information out of your head beats re-reading it for long-term memory (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). | Answering cards, and retelling the video before the picture. |
| Spacing | The same material spread over days is remembered longer than crammed in one sitting (Cepeda et al., 2006). | Round by round, and pass 2 and 3 on later days. |
| Interleaving | Mixing similar topics helps you tell them apart, though it feels harder (Kornell & Bjork, 2008). | Mixing your finished videos at the end. |
| Learn first, then mix | Interleaving tends to work best once each topic has been learned separately. | Study in order first, mix later. |
Other add-ons I love and would recommend. I'm not sponsored. These are just the ones I use and recommend to other students. Open a link to see what each one does.
The ones that make me actually want to open Anki.
A more modern Anki, by Peace (it's in beta). My favorite, no contest. It makes a huge difference in layout and overall feel: so much prettier, and the features are genuinely well thought out. If you only install one of these, make it this one. Anki Playlists works with it.
Reminds me of FarmVille, which I was obsessed with when I was younger lol. Your reviews help you grow plants, build your farm, and more. Very addictive, and it makes reviewing feel like a game.
Cute little pictures and positive reinforcement as you review. Small dopamine hits that make you want to keep going instead of dreading the deck.
Less friction in the middle of a review.
Auto-alert, auto-reveal and auto-answer, so reviews keep moving and you stay focused.
Fix a typo or add a note to a card without leaving your review.
Merriam-Webster and Google text-to-speech. Highlight any word on a card and hear it pronounced instantly. Genuinely useful for medical terms you've only ever seen written down.
For Step and shelf season.
Finds the cards in your decks that match the questions in a UWorld test.
The medical school Step and Shelf study resource, connected to Anki.
Small things that add up.
Makes searching your cards in the browser better.
Shuffles how your cards are formatted, so they don't always look the same.
To install any of them: Tools → Add-ons → Get Add-ons…, paste the code, then restart Anki.
Whatever works for you. Press Mix to study the finished subdecks together, go back to the parent deck like normal, retire the playlist (hides it, keeps progress), or delete it. Deleting never touches your cards.
No. Pass 1 counts as your normal reviews for those videos. Passes 2 and 3 are extra practice.
Yes. Close Anki any time and press Continue later. If you stop mid-pass, you repeat that pass. Closing Anki puts all your cards back in their own decks automatically.
No. Every new card in the video shows up, with no daily cap.
No. Any parent deck with subdecks works.
No. It checks the Entire Sketch first, then any picture in the Extra fields.
Yes. Each playlist keeps its own order and progress, so you can start a new one without losing the old one.
Yes. Playlists and progress are saved in your Anki collection, so they sync. A friend's playlists won't show up on yours, though. Only your own computers share them.
No. Continue skips the cards you already did.
Yes. Press Stop session at the bottom of the window and everything goes back. The parent deck works like always.
In practice passes, Good and Easy just mean you're done with that card for this pass. Nothing is scheduled.
Advanced settings → Text size.
Press Study Now, or Cmd + Option + S. Still stuck? Open Tools → Anki Playlists… → Stop session, then press Continue.
Tools → Add-ons → Check for Updates. Then quit Anki completely (Cmd + Q) and reopen it. The version is in the window title.
If you use Onigiri, place the Playlists widget in Onigiri's settings. Otherwise, open Advanced settings and check the box style isn't set to “Hide it”. Press Save settings, and the home screen refreshes.
Make a fresh playlist with ＋ New playlist, so you start from an empty list.
Tick it and click Reset passes.
Open Anki Playlists → Advanced settings → Copy debug log, and send it to me.