Glossary

Anki terminology and what each stat on the dashboard means

Card & Queue States

New: Cards that have been added to a deck but never studied. They sit in the "new" queue until Anki introduces them according to your daily new-card limit.
Learning: Cards currently in the initial learning phase. When you first study a new card, it enters the learning queue and is shown at short intervals (e.g. 1 min, 10 min) until you pass all learning steps. Cards that you press "Again" on during review also re-enter learning.
Review: Cards that have graduated from learning and are now on a regular review schedule. These are the cards Anki spaces out over increasing intervals. The bulk of a mature collection will be review cards.
Suspended: Cards manually taken out of rotation. Suspended cards won't appear in study sessions until you unsuspend them. Useful for temporarily removing leeches or cards you don't need right now.
Buried: Cards temporarily hidden until the next day. Anki automatically buries sibling cards (other cards from the same note) to avoid showing related content back-to-back. You can also manually bury cards.
Mature: Review cards with an interval of 21 days or more. This is Anki's threshold for considering a card well-learned. The mature count indicates how much of your collection you've committed to long-term memory.
Young: Review cards with an interval less than 21 days. These cards have graduated from learning but haven't yet reached the "mature" threshold. They still need relatively frequent review.

Review Metrics

Ease Factor: A per-card multiplier (shown as a percentage, e.g. 250%) that controls how quickly intervals grow. Higher ease means the card is easy for you and intervals grow faster. Pressing "Easy" increases it, pressing "Again" or "Hard" decreases it. The default starting ease is 250%.
Interval: The number of days until a review card is shown again. After each successful review, the interval is multiplied by the ease factor. For example, a card with a 10-day interval and 250% ease would next be shown in 25 days. Longer intervals mean you know the card better.
Lapses: The number of times you've forgotten a review card (pressed "Again" on a card that was already in the review queue). High lapse counts indicate a "leech" — a card that keeps slipping from memory. The "Hardest Cards" table sorts by lapses to help you identify these.
Retention Rate: The percentage of review cards you answered correctly (pressed Hard, Good, or Easy instead of Again). Only counted for cards already in the review queue — initial learning steps are excluded. A typical target is 85–95%. The dashboard shows your true retention rate.
Again: The first answer button (button 1). Indicates you forgot the card. The card re-enters learning, its ease factor decreases, and the lapse count increases by one.
Hard: The second answer button (button 2). You remembered but with difficulty. The interval increases only slightly, and the ease factor decreases by a small amount.
Good: The third answer button (button 3). You remembered correctly at a normal pace. The interval is multiplied by the current ease factor. This is the most common answer for well-learned cards.
Easy: The fourth answer button (button 4). You remembered instantly with no effort. The interval jumps ahead significantly, and the ease factor increases. Use sparingly — it can push intervals out very far.

Activity & Sessions

Streak: The number of consecutive days with at least one review. The "current streak" counts backwards from today (or yesterday, if you haven't studied today yet). Missing a single day resets it to zero.
Due Now: Cards that are due for review today, including any overdue cards from previous days. This is the total number of review cards waiting for you right now.
Overdue: Review cards whose scheduled due date has already passed. If you skip a day, those cards become overdue and accumulate until you review them. Note: Anki may only show a subset per day based on your daily review limit.
Session: A continuous block of study time. On this dashboard, a new session begins whenever there's a gap of more than 15 minutes between reviews. Session analysis helps you understand your study habits and patterns.
Fatigue Curve: Shows how your retention rate changes as you progress through a study session. The x-axis groups reviews by their position in the session (reviews 1–10, 11–20, etc.), and the y-axis shows what percentage you got right. A declining curve suggests mental fatigue during long sessions. The dashed red line shows your overall retention rate for comparison.

Dashboard Charts

Review Activity Heatmap: A GitHub-style calendar showing your daily review counts over the past 12 months. Color intensity is scaled to your personal review volume using percentiles, so the full color range is always used regardless of whether you do 20 or 200 reviews per day. Hover over any cell to see the exact count.
Study Hours Heatmap: A 7×24 grid showing when you study, broken down by day of the week and hour of the day. Brighter cells indicate times when you've done the most reviews. Useful for identifying your natural study patterns.
Card States (Doughnut): Shows the composition of your collection: how many cards are new, learning, in review, suspended, or buried. A healthy collection typically has most cards in the review state.
Interval Distribution: Counts how many of your learned cards fall into each interval range (1 day, 2–7 days, up to 1 year+). Cards with longer intervals are better known. This includes all cards that have ever been learned, including suspended ones.
Upcoming Reviews: A 30-day forecast of how many review cards will become due each day. The red bar marks today. Helps you anticipate heavy review days and plan accordingly.
Review Time vs Answer Button: Shows how long you spend on cards grouped by which button you press. The colored bars show the middle 50% range (25th to 75th percentile), and the diamond markers show the median. Typically, cards answered "Again" take longest, and "Easy" cards are fastest.
Session Length Distribution: How many of your study sessions fall into each duration bucket (<5 min, 5–15 min, etc.). Helps you understand whether you tend to do quick bursts or extended study blocks.