Yomitan + Anki: One-Click Card Creation
Yomitan can turn a hover into a saved Anki card with one click. First, you need a short one-time setup: install the AnkiConnect plugin, point Yomitan at a deck and a note type, and map a few fields.1 This article assumes Yomitan is already installed and looking up words, as set up in Yomitan (Yomichan): The Hover-Dictionary Workflow. If it is not, set that up first.
Overview
Three programs sit in this workflow, and each does one job. Yomitan handles the in-browser lookup. Anki stores and schedules the card for spaced-repetition review. A small add-on named AnkiConnect lets the two talk to each other.2
Once the bridge is built, the payoff loop is the same every time: browse native text, hover a word, click the green plus. The rest of this article covers the one-time setup that makes that loop work.
What this connects, and what you need first
Yomitan never writes to Anki directly. It speaks to Anki through AnkiConnect, an add-on that "will initialize a minimal HTTP sever running on port 8765 every time Anki executes" (the source's spelling of "sever" preserved).2 That server binds locally only, on the same computer: "By default, AnkiConnect will only bind the HTTP server to the 127.0.0.1 IP address, so that you will only be able to access it from the same host on which it is running."2
That local binding is why the bridge needs no account and no outside network. Yomitan's browser and Anki run on the same machine, so the hand-off happens entirely over localhost, the computer's own local address.
The chain has three links, and a break anywhere stops the card from being saved.
Three things must be in place before you can mine the first card: Yomitan must already look up words, the Anki desktop application must be installed, and Yomitan needs a deck plus a note type to add into. The deck and note type are covered below. A dedicated mining deck is a recommendation, while a selected deck and model are a hard requirement Yomitan enforces.1
Why mine cards from what you read
Cards mined from real reading carry their own context. The word arrives attached to a sentence you actually met, not just a dictionary stub. That context is the basis of the i+1 idea, where each new card adds one unknown to material you can otherwise follow.
This article is the tooling how-to for that hand-off. The discipline of choosing what to mine, and the i+1 reasoning behind it, belongs to Sentence Mining: Building Your Own Japanese Anki Deck From What You Read and the reading-strategy articles it sits with.
Installing AnkiConnect
Adding the plugin in Anki
AnkiConnect installs by add-on code. The code is 2055492159, a stable identifier because it is the add-on's AnkiWeb listing ID.32
The install steps are quoted from the AnkiConnect README: "Open the Install Add-on dialog by selecting Tools > Add-ons > Browse & Install in Anki. Input 2055492159 into the text box labeled Code and press the OK button to proceed. Restart Anki when prompted to do so in order to complete the installation of AnkiConnect."2
The README labels the path Tools > Add-ons > Browse & Install, while some Anki versions label the same dialog Get Add-ons. Either route opens the box that asks for a Code; paste 2055492159 there.2
After restarting, you can confirm the bridge is live without touching Yomitan. The README's check says: "You can verify that AnkiConnect is running at any time by accessing localhost:8765 in your browser. If the server is running, you should see the message AnkiConnect v.5 displayed in your browser window."2 Treat "an AnkiConnect banner appears" as the durable signal. The exact version string in the banner depends on the add-on build.
Anki must be running
AnkiConnect's server exists only while Anki is open. The README states the requirement plainly: "Anki must be kept running in the background in order for other applications to be able to use AnkiConnect."2
The mechanism follows from the install: the HTTP server starts "running on port 8765 every time Anki executes." When Anki is closed, Yomitan has nothing to reach.2 The Yomitan wiki gives the same diagnosis from its own side. When no add icons appear, it advises you to "make sure that Anki is running in the background."1
Yomitan cannot save a card to an Anki that is not open. Keep the Anki desktop application running in the background for the whole reading session, not just when you decide to add a word.2
Connecting Yomitan to Anki
Enable Anki integration
With AnkiConnect installed and Anki open, switch on the integration inside Yomitan's settings. The wiki's instruction says: "Tick the checkbox labeled Enable Anki integration," found in the Anki Options area of the Yomitan settings page.1
Yomitan configures two card types separately: one under a Terms tab and one under a Kanji tab. Each tab gets its own deck, model, and field mapping, so a vocabulary card and a kanji card can land in different decks with different fields.1
Choosing a deck and note type (model)
Before you can map any field, Yomitan asks you to "Select the Anki deck and model to use for new creating new flashcards of this type" (the wiki's phrasing kept verbatim, grammar slip included).1 Choose both a deck and a model first, because the field mapping in the next step is defined per model.1
"Model" is Anki's term for a note type. The dropdown labeled model in Yomitan is the same list as Anki's note types; the wiki uses "model" throughout.1
A dedicated mining deck keeps these reading-sourced cards separate from any pre-made decks you study. That makes the next step's field choices easier to reason about.
Mapping the card fields
Field markers and what they pull
Field mapping happens through the "Configure Anki card format..." control in Yomitan's Anki settings. There, you fill each field of your chosen model with one or more markers.1 A marker is a name wrapped in curly braces. When a card is created, Yomitan replaces it with the matching piece of the looked-up entry.1
The starter subset below is enough for a sentence-mining card, which is a card made from a sentence you actually read. Each description is quoted from the Yomitan wiki.1
| Marker | What it inserts |
|---|---|
{expression} | "Term expressed as kanji (will be displayed in kana if kanji is not available)." |
{reading} | "Kana reading for the term (empty for terms where the expression is the reading)." |
{furigana} | "Term expressed as kanji with furigana displayed above it." |
{sentence} | "Sentence, quote, or phrase that the term appears in from the source content." |
{sentence-furigana} | "Sentence, quote, or phrase that the term appears in from the source content, with furigana added." |
{glossary} | "List of definitions for the term (output format depends on whether running in grouped mode)." |
{audio} | "Audio of the term's pronunciation from one of the audio sources (if available)." |
{screenshot} | "Screenshot of the web page taken at the time the term was added." |
Yomitan exposes far more markers than these, including frequency data, pitch-accent notations, and the cloze trio, which splits a sentence around the looked-up word.1 The eight above cover a standard vocabulary-plus-context card. Reach for the others only when your note type has a field that needs them.
Recommended starter mapping
The principle is one Anki field per piece of the entry. A "Word" field takes {expression}, a "Reading" field takes {reading} or {furigana}, a "Meaning" field takes {glossary}, and a "Sentence" field takes {sentence} or {sentence-furigana}. Optional "Audio" and "Image" fields take {audio} and {screenshot}.1
That is a mapping shape, not a shipped note type. Detailed note-type design and the named community templates that circulate for it are a separate topic. This article stops at the principle so any model with these fields will work.
The first-field duplicate trap
Anki uses one field to decide whether a card is new. The wiki states it directly: "Anki does not allow duplicate flashcards to be added to a deck by default; it uses the first field in the model to check for duplicates."1
This rule drives the whole mapping. Map the marker that uniquely identifies the card into the model's first field: {expression} for term cards or {character} for kanji cards.1 If the first field holds something non-unique, or is left for the sentence, Anki can judge a genuinely new word as a duplicate and silently fail to add it.1
Put {expression} (or {character} for kanji) in the note type's first field, because that field is Anki's duplicate key. When a word is already in the deck, Yomitan offers only an "add duplicate" state, or no add affordance at all if duplicates are prevented.1
The mining workflow: browse, hover, plus
Browse, hover, plus
With the bridge built, mining takes three actions. Read native text in the browser, hover the word with your configured modifier to open the Yomitan popup, then click the add icon to send the card to the deck you selected.1
The popup's add icon is the one-click step the title promises. The wiki describes it with its own example word: "Clicking [the icon] adds the current expression (e.g. 食べる)," and a second icon adds that expression's reading.1
食べる1
"to eat" (the wiki's own example of a word added by the plus button)
If no add icons appear at all, the cause is upstream of Yomitan. The wiki's remedy is to "make sure that Anki is running in the background," which ties the loop's failure straight back to AnkiConnect's running requirement.1
Vocab card vs. context-sentence card
The difference between a bare vocabulary card and a context card is which markers you mapped. A vocab card maps {expression}, {reading}, and {glossary}. A context card adds {sentence} or {sentence-furigana}, which captures the "Sentence, quote, or phrase that the term appears in from the source content."1
What {sentence} captures depends on the text around the looked-up word on the page. It is not a fixed value.1 The cloze markers split that same captured sentence around the word, which is how cloze-deletion card styles are built from the same lookup.1
Audio and screenshots
{audio} inserts "Audio of the term's pronunciation from one of the audio sources (if available)." That phrasing carries two qualifiers: it pulls from configured audio sources, and only when audio exists for the term.1 {screenshot} inserts a "Screenshot of the web page taken at the time the term was added."1
Both fields are optional and source-dependent. Configure audio sources in Yomitan's own Audio settings, not in the Anki tab. That part belongs to the Yomitan setup this article assumes you have already done.
Good to know
Keep the deck shallow and the cards few
A mining deck grows fast. A deck full of words you half-recognized is harder to keep up with than a small deck of words that genuinely blocked you. Mine the words that stop comprehension, not every unknown that scrolls past.
The judgment of what is worth a card, and how many is too many, belongs to Sentence Mining: Building Your Own Japanese Anki Deck From What You Read. This article only provides the tool that adds the card.
When the plus button is greyed out or missing
When the add button or icon does not work, four causes cover almost every case. Check them in order, because the first is by far the most common.
First, Anki is not open. No icons appear, and the fix is to start Anki, since "Anki must be kept running in the background."21 Second, AnkiConnect is not installed or not reachable. Confirm this by loading localhost:8765 and looking for the AnkiConnect banner.2
Third, no deck or model is selected in Yomitan. Both must be chosen before a card can be added.1 Fourth, the word is a duplicate against the first field. In that case, Yomitan offers only "add duplicate" or nothing, because Anki "uses the first field in the model to check for duplicates."1
This is where reader, OCR, and subtitle tools deliver their cards
This Yomitan-plus-Anki pipeline is the destination for a wider set of reading tools, not a standalone trick. An in-browser e-reader, an OCR layer over manga, and a subtitle miner for video all produce text that Yomitan can read on hover. They all hand their cards to this same bridge.
Set up the field mapping once, and every one of those sources feeds the same deck through the same browse-hover-plus loop.
See also
- Yomitan (Yomichan): The Hover-Dictionary Workflow
- When to Look Up a Word vs. Infer It (Japanese)
- Kindle for Japanese Learners
- When SRS Becomes Counterproductive: Anki Burnout, Leeches, and the Exit Signs
- Why Anki Has Become Painful (and How to Fix It): A Diagnostic Triage