anki-notes-cli

CLI for Anki Notes: Flashcards Maker — manage your flashcards from the terminal: search, review stats, import, export, backup & restore.

Read-only access to the app's local SQLite database. No API keys or authentication required.

Install

From GitHub Releases (recommended)

curl -fsSL https://github.com/asabirov/anki-cli/releases/latest/download/anki-notes-cli-macos-universal.tar.gz | tar xz
install -m 755 anki-notes-cli ~/.local/bin/

From source

git clone https://github.com/asabirov/anki-cli.git
cd anki-cli
swift build -c release
cp .build/release/anki-notes-cli ~/.local/bin/

Requires: macOS 13+, Anki Notes installed. Building from source requires Swift 5.9+.

Usage

# Dashboard with retention, timeline, per-tag breakdown
anki-notes-cli dashboard

# List flashcards
anki-notes-cli ls
anki-notes-cli ls --limit 10 --tag Japanese
anki-notes-cli ls --type review --sort due --asc
anki-notes-cli ls --favorites

# View a specific card
anki-notes-cli get 4687
anki-notes-cli get 4687 --raw   # show HTML content

# Search cards
anki-notes-cli search "hello"

# List tags
anki-notes-cli tags

# Export
anki-notes-cli export --format json -o cards.json
anki-notes-cli export --format csv --tag Spanish -o spanish.csv

# Extract to markdown files + media
anki-notes-cli extract ./output --tag Japanese

# Backup & restore
anki-notes-cli backup
anki-notes-cli restore ~/backup.sqlite

All commands support --json for machine-readable output and --db <path> to override the database location.

Commands

Command	Description
dashboard	Stats dashboard: retention, timeline, per-tag table
ls	List flashcards with filters
get	View a flashcard by ID
search	Search cards by front/back text
tags	List all tags with card counts
export	Export cards as JSON, CSV, or TSV
extract	Extract all cards to markdown files with media
backup	Back up the database (SQLite snapshot)
restore	Restore the database from a backup

How it works

Anki Notes stores its data in a Core Data SQLite database synced via iCloud (CloudKit). This CLI reads the local database at:

~/Library/Containers/maccatalyst.social.street.MemoryAssistant/
  Data/Library/Application Support/Anki Notes/Model1.sqlite

The database is opened in read-only mode — no risk of data corruption.

License

MIT