Every Anki Keyboard Shortcut You Need to Know (2026 Cheat Sheet)

Clicking buttons during Anki reviews is slow. Once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, you'll cut your review time significantly — and more importantly, build a flow state where nothing breaks your concentration.

This is every shortcut worth knowing in Anki, organized by where you'll use them. Bookmark this page. You'll come back to it.

Review Shortcuts (The Ones You'll Use Every Day)

These work during card reviews — the screen you spend 90% of your Anki time on.

Answering Cards

Space does double duty: it flips the card to show the answer, then rates "Good" when you press it again. Most people just tap Space-Space-Space through their reviews unless they need to hit Again.

During Review

The Most Important Ones

If you only learn three shortcuts, make them:

1. Space — flip and rate Good
2. 1 — rate Again (you got it wrong)
3. Z — undo (misclicked? fix it instantly)

That covers probably 95% of what you need during reviews. Everything else is gravy.

Main Screen Shortcuts

These work on the deck overview screen — the first thing you see when you open Anki.

Browser Shortcuts

The browser is where you manage your cards — search, edit, tag, suspend, delete. These shortcuts make it usable.

Navigation

Card Actions

Flags

Flags are underrated. Use them to mark cards for later review — "needs better image," "check source," "rewrite this cloze." Each color can mean whatever you want.

Editor Shortcuts

These work when you're adding or editing cards.

Text Formatting

Cloze Shortcuts Explained

The cloze shortcuts deserve extra attention because they're how you create the most effective card type in Anki:

• Ctrl+Shift+C: Creates a new cloze with the next number. Select "mitochondria" → press the shortcut → get mitochondria. Select another word → get another word. Each one becomes a separate card.
• Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C: Creates a cloze with the same number as the last one. This means both deletions appear on the same card. Use this when two concepts go together — "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" produces one card with both blanks.

Media & Fields

Mac Users: Swap Ctrl for Cmd

On macOS, replace Ctrl with Cmd for most shortcuts. Exceptions:

• Cloze deletions use Cmd+Shift+C (same pattern)
• Some browser shortcuts differ slightly — check Anki's menu bar for the exact keys
• Cmd+Z for undo works everywhere, not just reviews

Custom Shortcuts with Add-ons

The default shortcuts are good, but if you want more control, these add-ons let you customize everything:

Customize Keyboard Shortcuts — Reassign any shortcut to any key. Popular change: mapping "Again" to a left-hand key so you can review one-handed.

Speed Focus Mode — Auto-flips cards after a set time. Not exactly a shortcut, but it forces you to answer faster, which accomplishes the same goal.

Review Heatmap — Adds Shift+H to toggle the heatmap view. Motivational at a glance.

External Controllers

Keyboard shortcuts are fast, but some people take it further with external devices:

• 8BitDo Zero 2 — A tiny Bluetooth gamepad. Map buttons to 1/2/3/4 for one-handed review anywhere. Popular with medical students who review during commutes.
• Presentation clickers — Any USB/Bluetooth clicker with forward/back buttons can work as Space + 1. Simple and cheap.
• Foot pedals — Yes, really. Some power users map foot pedals to answer buttons for truly hands-free review.

We have a full guide to Anki remote clickers if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

Speed Tips Beyond Shortcuts

Shortcuts alone won't make you fast if your workflow is broken. A few tips:

Don't deliberate on ratings. If you have to think about whether you knew it, you didn't. Hit Again and move on. Agonizing over Hard vs Good wastes more time than any shortcut saves.

Use filtered decks for focused study. Instead of scrolling through a massive deck, create a filtered deck for the material you need. tag:cardiology is:due gives you exactly what you want.

Turn off the timer anxiety. The answer time shown on buttons is just a suggestion. FSRS and SM-2 both handle scheduling — your job is just to honestly rate your recall.

Review in full screen. Fewer distractions, faster flow. Most people don't realize how much time they lose tabbing away during reviews.

Quick Reference Card

Print this or screenshot it:

REVIEWING:
  Space    → Show answer / Good
  1-4      → Again, Hard, Good, Easy
  Z        → Undo
  E        → Edit card
  @        → Suspend card

MAIN SCREEN:
  A        → Add card
  B        → Browser
  Y        → Sync
  D        → Decks

EDITOR:
  Ctrl+Shift+C     → New cloze
  Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C → Same-number cloze
  Ctrl+Enter       → Save card

BROWSER:
  Ctrl+J   → Suspend toggle
  Ctrl+D   → Change deck
  Ctrl+1-7 → Flags

Make SlideToAnki Cards About Shortcuts

If you're using SlideToAnki to generate cards from lecture slides, you already know how valuable it is to have cards ready to go without manual creation. But you can also create shortcut cards manually to drill these keybindings:

• Space shows the answer and rates Good
• Ctrl+Shift+C creates a new cloze deletion
• Press Z during review to undo the last answer

A week of reviewing these and the shortcuts will be automatic. That's the whole point of Anki — making recall effortless.