Anki Merge Notes Add-on

This Anki add-on allows you to merge multiple selected notes/cards directly from the Anki Browser into a single note.

Install from AnkiWeb

Features

• Merge Multiple Notes: Select two or more cards in the Anki Browser, right-click, and choose "Merge Notes...".
• Cross-Type Merging: You can merge notes of different Note Types. The add-on extracts all available fields from the selected notes.
• Multi-Source Field Mapping: A unified graphical interface lets you map one or more source fields into each target field of your chosen Note Type.
• Custom Separator: Choose a custom text or HTML separator (like <br><hr><br>) to insert between the merged contents.
• Remove Cloze Syntax: Option to automatically strip out {{c1::...}} syntax from the combined text, keeping only the raw text, which is especially useful when merging cloze notes into a basic non-cloze note type.
• Automatic Cleanup: Option to automatically delete the original source notes after a successful merge.
• Zero-Hang Review History Preservation: Preserves review history in a background thread to prevent UI freezes while ensuring the merged card retains its full study history.
• Full Undo Support: The entire merge operation is fully undoable via Ctrl+Z, even when history is preserved.
• Live Operation Logs: View high-resolution timing for every internal operation in the new "Logs" tab for full transparency.
• Dedicated Workflow Buttons: Choice between "Merge" (to see logs) and "Merge and Close" for a faster workflow.
• Tags Preservation: The newly merged note will inherit all tags from the original notes.
• Intelligent Field Matching: Automatically suggests the best source field for each target field based on name similarity.
• Persistent Preferences: The add-on remembers your field mappings per Note Type, selected Target Deck, custom separator, and other options across Anki sessions, including multi-source mappings.
• Auto-Detection: Automatically suggests the target deck based on the deck of your originally selected notes.
• Safer Merge Validation: Missing source notes or invalid target selections are detected before merge/delete actions are applied.
• Data Loss Prevention: Warns you before merging if unmapped fields containing valuable data are going to be permanently lost when original notes are deleted.

⚠️ Important: Review History & Duplicate Cards

When you merge notes, the add-on still creates a new note. Review history in Anki is tied to card IDs, so the add-on can only preserve history by copying it from one selected source card onto the merged result.

1. New Note Creation: The merge creates a new note, not an in-place rewrite of an existing one.
2. Optional History Transfer: If Preserve review history on merged card is enabled, you can choose one source card whose scheduling state and review log should be copied to the merged card.
3. Single History Donor: Only one source card's history can be preserved. Histories from multiple reviewed cards are not combined.
4. Multi-Card Note Types: If the target note type generates multiple cards, the preserved history is applied to the first generated merged card.
5. Deletion of Original Notes: If Delete original notes after merge is enabled, the source notes/cards are removed after the merge succeeds.
6. Keeping Original Notes: If deletion is disabled, the original cards remain, and the merged note is added alongside them.
7. Undo Behavior: On current Anki versions, Undo removes the merged note and restores the original notes as a single Merge Notes step, even when review history is preserved.

Recommendation: Choose the history source card carefully, especially when merging multiple reviewed notes into one result, because only one card's scheduling state and review history can be copied onto the merged result.

Installation

From AnkiWeb (Recommended)

1. Open Anki.
2. Go to Tools -> Add-ons.
3. Click Get Add-ons....
4. Paste the code: 1774874894.
5. Restart Anki.

Manual Installation

1. Copy the addon folder contents to your Anki addons21 directory, or use make_ankiaddon.py to build an .ankiaddon package.
2. Restart Anki.

Usage

1. Open the Anki Browser.
2. Select two or more cards/notes.
3. Right-click and select "Merge Notes..." from the context menu, or from the Notes menu in the menu bar.
4. Choose Target Note Type: Select the model you want for the new merged note.
5. Map Fields: For each target field, check one or more source fields you want to combine into it.
6. Configure Options:
   • Set a custom separator.
   • Choose whether to remove cloze syntax.
   • Choose whether to preserve review history on the merged card.
   • If preserving history, choose which source card should donate its history.
   • Choose whether to delete the original notes.
7. Click OK to merge.

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Support

If you find this add-on useful, please consider supporting its development:

Changelog

2026-06-06 (v1.3.0)

• Unified Configuration GUI: Removed the separate preferences dialog and integrated all configuration settings under the new Options tab in the main Merge Notes window.
• Clean Submodule Architecture: Split the GUI tabs (Merge, Options, Logs, Support) into dedicated submodules (tab_*.py) for better maintainability.
• AI Hints Merging: Added support for parsing, merging, and rendering embedded ai-hints-json blocks from multiple merged source notes into a single unified metadata block.
• Added Support Tab: Integrated a dedicated "Support" tab inside the Merge dialog showing Ko-fi and QR code payment/address options.
• Fixed GUI Import Crash: Resolved a startup crash (ModuleNotFoundError) due to refactored submodules.
• Robust Startup Safety: Implemented deferred startup checks that detect active modal dialogs, sync events, and Anki busy state to prevent startup crashes when opening the Welcome/Support dialog.
• Fixed QR Images: Corrected the image paths to properly load QR code JPGs from the addon's subfolder.

2026-05-09 (v1.2.5)

• Restored Undo: Fixed a conflict where history preservation would break Anki's Undo stack; Ctrl+Z now works perfectly again.
• Eliminated UI Hangs: Review history is now copied in a background thread with automatic lock retries, ensuring the Anki UI never freezes or hangs.
• Live Logs: Added a "Logs" tab to both the Merge dialog and Configuration window to show real-time timing for every step of the merge.
• New Action Buttons: Added dedicated "Merge" and "Merge and Close" buttons for more control over the workflow.
• Log Management: Added "Copy Logs" and "Clear Logs" features, plus an option to automatically clear logs on startup.

2026-04-28

• Improved browser behavior: successfully merging notes no longer causes the browser list to jump to the top or reset its scroll position when "Open newly created note" is unchecked.
• Surgical refresh: implemented targeted list updates that preserve your current view context even after notes are merged or deleted.

2026-04-24

• Auto-select the same note type as target when all selected notes share the same type.
• Improved undo reliability: reordered internal operations so the undo group is sealed before any raw database writes.
• Fixed the post-merge browser refresh path so Ctrl+Z cleanly removes the merged note while restoring the originals.

2026-04-14

• Added a confirmation warning prompt to prevent accidental data loss if original notes are deleted while unmapped source fields contain data.
• Fixed the dynamic "Merge Notes" label on Edit > Undo across all modern Anki versions.

2026-03-31 (v1.2.0)

• Added a default-on Preserve review history on merged card option in the merge dialog.
• Added a source-card picker that shows the card number so you can choose which original card should donate its review history.
• Copied the selected source card's scheduling state and review log onto the merged card while keeping the merged-note workflow.
• Added configuration support and regression tests for the review-history preservation flow.
• Added a warning in the merge dialog and README that Undo may not fully revert copied review-history rows.

2026-03-25

• Restored true multi-source field mapping in the merge dialog, matching the documented checkbox workflow.
• Fixed stale-note handling so deleted or invalid selections are skipped safely before merge and delete actions run.
• Improved merge validation for missing target note types/decks and made merged tag ordering deterministic.
• Fixed cloze cleanup for multiline cloze content.
• Added regression tests for version helpers and merge behavior.

2026-03-24

• Added Intelligent Field Matching to automatically suggest the best source fields for each target field.
• Added Persistent Preferences to remember your field mappings per Note Type, Target Deck, and other configurations across sessions.
• Added Auto-Detection for the target deck automatically based on originally selected notes.
• Fixed a bug where global configurations (custom separator, checkboxes) were not being persisted correctly on dialog load.