Customising Anki Desktop (Beginner Tutorial)

Motivate yourself to stay consistent with your vibe on Anki Desktop

Aesthetics are not everything.

I’m quite famous in the language community for denouncing language influencers that rely solely on aesthetics for growth, and don’t really highlight the fact that languages can be learnt with nothing and everything — it’s all about igniting your passions and continually chipping away at your weaknesses.

However true that may be, it can’t be denied that aesthetics are motivating.

One of the things that kept me from conquering Anki and adding it into my routine, was the fact that it was so ugly. The overall design, the UI/UX — is shameful. But I guess, that’s usually what open-source programmes look like and Anki is as powerful as it is ugly.

If you’re ready to conquer Anki, like I finally was, but making it a little softer on the eyes would make it easier to commit to, you’ve come to the right place.

How to Customise Anki

There are so many ways to customise Anki, but in this tutorial, we will be focusing on the basics: Creating a theme, and adding a heat map.

Adding a Heatmap

A heatmap collects and visualises your card stats and app use over time. This is so motivating and helps you with building consistency.

1. Go to this webpage → https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1771074083
2. Then take the code (1771074083 ) and on Anki, go to “Tools>Add-ons>Get Add-ons”
3. Paste in the code (1771074083) and enter
4. Exit Anki and use your cards (give the heatmap some data) to see the heatmap appear.

Creating a Theme

The instructions below are to create a theme similar to the one I have in the video/thumbnail, but you can manipulate the settings in any way to create your unique theme.

1. Go to this webpage → https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1210908941
2. Then take the code (1210908941) and on Anki, go to “Tools>Add-ons>Get Add-ons”
3. Paste in the code (1210908941) and enter
4. Exit Anki and re-open to see the default theme and settings tab appear.
5. Delete what’s in the “image name for background” section to clear the image and reveal background colours

6. You can also add an image into the “Image Folder” and type the image name into the space “Image name for background”

If you want to use a photo, open “Image Folders” and add in your photo, then type the name of the file in

7. Change the colours for the background and top and bottom bar to your liking.

Here are the colours I used:
MAIN: #e5efd2
TOP TOOLBAR: #6e5e49
BOTTOM TOOLBAR: #fff4c0

And that’s it! You should now have a fantastic-looking flashcard set-up.

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