Anki - (Basic) note type naming mess (variants without a difference)

creation-date:: 2023-07-28

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Q: I have about 20 different types of "basic" note types and they all look the same. Can someone explain what the difference is?
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A:

• "Basic" [and all the variants] shows you the card front then the card back.

• "Basic (and reversed card)" [and all the variants] shows you 2 card types: Front/Back and Back/Front.

• "Basic (optional reversed card)" [you guessed it: and all the variants] shows you Front/Back and lets you choose if you also want Back/Front *Cloze [and variants] shows you pre-typed sentences with parts of them hidden. For the answer, they get unhidden.

As others said, the reason why you have so many of the same type, just with numbers is because of importing. It doesn't make any practical difference.

With that said: If you want to cut down your card types so that you just have one type of basic, etc follow these steps:

• In the browser select all of the cards of one of the weird types, eg. Basic**-0e679**

• Go to Tools > Change note type and change them to Basic

• You can then delete that weird card type in the "Choose Note Type" box you showed in the picture
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