How to Find, Filter, and Manage Suspended Cards in Anki

Suspended cards are invisible. They don't show up in your reviews, they don't appear in your due count, and unless you go looking for them, you'd never know they exist. That's the point. Suspension is how you hide cards without deleting them. But it also means thousands of cards can be sitting in your collection doing nothing, and finding them when you need them takes knowing the right search commands.

Whether you're trying to unsuspend cards for an upcoming exam, clean up a massive pre-made deck like AnKing, or just figure out which cards you've put on hold, here's exactly how to find and manage suspended cards in Anki.

The Quick Answer

Open the browser (press B), and type one of these in the search bar:

That covers 90% of what people need. Read on for the details and advanced workflows.

Finding Suspended Cards

In the Card Browser

The browser is where all card management happens. Open it from the main screen or press B.

Show all suspended cards:

is:suspended

Type this in the search bar and press Enter. Every suspended card in your entire collection appears. You'll notice suspended cards have a distinct yellow/olive background color in the browser, making them easy to spot visually even in mixed search results.

Show all active (not suspended) cards:

-is:suspended

The minus sign negates the filter. This shows every card that's currently active and will appear in your reviews.

Suspended cards in a specific deck:

deck:Pathology is:suspended

Only shows suspended cards from your Pathology deck.

Suspended cards with specific content:

is:suspended "beta blocker"

Finds suspended cards containing the exact phrase "beta blocker." Useful when you know you suspended something and want to bring it back.

Suspended cards with a tag:

is:suspended tag:cardiology

All suspended cardiology cards. This is the most common workflow for students using tagged decks like AnKing: unsuspend cards by topic as you cover them in class.

Using the Sidebar Filter

In the browser sidebar, under "Card State," you'll see options including:

• Suspended (click to show only suspended cards)
• Buried (different from suspended, these reset daily)

Clicking "Suspended" in the sidebar is the same as typing is:suspended in the search bar. It's just faster if you don't want to type.

Suspending Cards

Suspend a Single Card

During review, press @ (Shift + 2) or go to More > Suspend Card. The card disappears from your reviews immediately.

In the browser, right-click a card and choose Toggle Suspend, or select the card and press Ctrl/Cmd + J.

Suspend Multiple Cards

1. Open the browser
2. Search for the cards you want to suspend (by tag, deck, keyword, or any combination)
3. Select all results: Ctrl/Cmd + A
4. Press Ctrl/Cmd + J to toggle suspension

All selected cards are now suspended.

Suspend vs. Bury vs. Delete

These three get confused constantly:

• Suspend: Card is hidden indefinitely until you manually unsuspend it. Survives across sessions. Use this for cards you don't need right now but might need later.
• Bury: Card is hidden until the next day. Anki automatically unburies cards at your configured rollover time. Use this when you don't want to see a card again today but want it back tomorrow.
• Delete: Card is permanently gone. Only do this for cards you're certain you'll never need.

Suspension is by far the most useful of the three for deck management.

Unsuspending Cards

Unsuspend Specific Cards

Same process as suspending. In the browser:

1. Search for the suspended cards you want to bring back: is:suspended tag:cardiology
2. Select them (Ctrl/Cmd + A for all, or click individually)
3. Press Ctrl/Cmd + J to toggle them back to active

They'll appear in your review queue based on their scheduling state (new cards go to the new queue, review cards go to their due date).

Unsuspend by Tag (The AnKing Workflow)

This is the most common workflow for medical students using large pre-made decks. The AnKing deck comes with almost all cards suspended by default. The idea is that you unsuspend cards as you cover topics in class:

1. Open the browser
2. Search: is:suspended tag:cardiology::heart-failure
3. Select all: Ctrl/Cmd + A
4. Toggle suspend: Ctrl/Cmd + J
5. Close the browser and start reviewing

Repeat for each topic after each lecture. This way you're only studying cards relevant to what you've actually learned, instead of being overwhelmed by 30,000 cards on day one.

Unsuspend by Deck

deck:Step1 is:suspended

Select all, Ctrl/Cmd + J. Every suspended card in your Step 1 deck is now active. Be careful with this on large decks because you might unsuspend thousands of cards at once, which will spike your daily new card count.

Advanced Filtering

Combine suspension status with other filters

The is:suspended filter combines with every other Anki search operator. Some useful combinations:

Suspended new cards (never seen):

is:suspended is:new

Cards you suspended before ever reviewing them. Common with pre-made decks where you only unsuspend as needed.

Suspended mature cards:

is:suspended is:review prop:ivl>=21

Cards you've already learned well (interval of 21+ days) but suspended. Maybe you suspended them because they felt too easy, or because the topic isn't relevant to your current course.

Suspended cards added recently:

is:suspended added:30

Cards added in the last 30 days that got suspended. Useful for finding cards you might have accidentally suspended.

Suspended cards you've failed a lot:

is:suspended prop:lapses>=5

Cards with 5+ lapses (times you pressed Again) that you eventually suspended. These might need to be rewritten rather than unsuspended as-is.

Suspended cards from a specific source:

is:suspended tag:lecture::week-5 deck:Anatomy

Lecture 5 anatomy cards that are suspended. Unsuspend these before that lecture's exam.

Count Your Suspended Cards

There's no built-in counter in the browser, but after searching is:suspended, look at the bottom of the browser window. It shows the total number of results, like "2,847 cards." That's your suspended count.

For deck-specific counts:

deck:AnKing is:suspended

Check the result count at the bottom. Compare to:

deck:AnKing -is:suspended

Now you know how many are active vs. suspended in that deck.

Suspension Strategies

Strategy 1: Start Suspended, Unsuspend by Topic

Best for: Large pre-made decks (AnKing, Zanki, Lightyear)

Suspend everything on day one. Each week, unsuspend the tags matching what you covered in lecture. By the end of the year, your entire deck is active and you've seen everything in sync with your curriculum.

Strategy 2: Suspend the Noise

Best for: Personal decks that have grown unwieldy

Go through your deck and suspend cards that are low-yield, outdated, or irrelevant to your current goals. This is better than deleting because you can always bring them back.

Search for leeches (cards you keep failing):

tag:leech

Review them. Rewrite the bad ones, suspend the ones that are genuinely low-yield.

Strategy 3: Exam-Based Suspension Cycles

Best for: Students with multiple courses running simultaneously

Suspend all cards not relevant to your next exam. After the exam, unsuspend those cards and suspend the ones for topics you've already been tested on (or keep them active for cumulative finals).

is:suspended tag:midterm-2

Unsuspend these two weeks before the midterm. Suspend tag:midterm-1 -tag:final cards if you need to reduce daily load.

Strategy 4: The 80/20 Cleanup

Best for: Anyone with 10,000+ cards

Search for cards with very high intervals that you consistently get right:

-is:suspended prop:ivl>=180 prop:lapses=0

These are cards with 6+ month intervals and zero failures. You know them cold. Suspending some of these reduces your daily reviews without any real risk to your retention. You can always unsuspend them before a big cumulative exam.

Suspended Cards on Mobile

AnkiMobile (iOS)

The browser on AnkiMobile supports the same search syntax. Tap the search icon, type is:suspended, and you'll see your suspended cards. You can select and unsuspend from mobile, though the interface is clunkier than desktop.

AnkiDroid (Android)

Same search support. Open the card browser from the menu, search is:suspended, and manage from there. AnkiDroid's browser is reasonably full-featured for this.

Tip: Do bulk suspension management on desktop where selecting and toggling hundreds of cards is faster. Use mobile for quick one-off suspensions during review.

Common Questions

Do suspended cards affect my statistics?

No. Suspended cards don't count toward your due cards, new cards, or review forecasts. They're essentially invisible to the scheduler.

Do suspended cards sync?

Yes. Suspension status syncs across devices through AnkiWeb. Suspend on desktop, and the card is suspended on mobile too.

Can I accidentally suspend a card?

Yes, and it happens more than you'd think, especially if you hit the wrong keyboard shortcut during review. If cards seem to disappear, search is:suspended added:1 to find anything suspended today.

Is there a limit to how many cards I can suspend?

No. You can suspend your entire collection if you want. Some students have 25,000+ suspended cards and 3,000 active ones. That's fine.

Will unsuspending a card reset its scheduling?

No. The card picks up where it left off. If it had a 30-day interval when you suspended it, it'll be due immediately when unsuspended (since its due date has probably passed), but its interval and ease factor are preserved.

Quick Reference

Mastering suspension is the difference between drowning in a 30,000-card deck and having a focused, manageable daily review load. It's the most underrated organizational tool in Anki.

If you're building your decks with SlideToAnki, your generated cards come tagged by lecture topic, making it easy to suspend and unsuspend entire topics as you move through your curriculum. Upload slides, generate cards, suspend what you haven't covered yet, and unsuspend as you go.