This one trips up a lot of people. You set up a kanji writing or drawing workflow in Anki on your computer using an add-on, it works beautifully, and then you open Anki on your phone to practise on the go and the feature is simply gone. You are not doing anything wrong. Add-ons do not run on mobile Anki, and that has consequences for writing practice specifically.
Why add-ons vanish on mobile
Anki add-ons are Python programs that run inside the desktop application. The mobile apps are separate builds: AnkiMobile on iOS and AnkiDroid on Android. Neither loads desktop add-ons, by design, as the official Anki manual explains. Your cards and scheduling sync across all of them, but any behaviour that came from an add-on stays on the desktop. So a drawing scratchpad, a handwriting-input add-on, or a custom writing review type will not appear when you study on your phone.
What this means for kanji writing
Writing practice is hit hardest by this, because the useful part, getting you to produce the character by hand, is often exactly what the add-on provided. Without it, your mobile reviews quietly fall back to recognition: you see the card, think the answer, and tap. That is reading practice, not writing, and it is the trap we describe in recognition versus recall. If most of your studying happens on your phone, an add-on-dependent writing setup means you are barely writing at all.
Your mobile options
| Option | Works on mobile? | Builds writing? |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop add-on for drawing | No, desktop only | Yes, but not on phone |
| Plain Anki card with a writing prompt | Yes | Only if you write by hand on paper |
| Built-in handwriting field on a card | Sometimes, fiddly | Partially |
| A dedicated writing app | Yes | Yes, by design |
The cleanest fix is to stop relying on an add-on for the writing half and use a tool that is writing-first on mobile from the start.
A simple phone-first writing routine
- Keep Anki for reading and vocabulary, where its scheduling shines.
- For writing, open a writing-first app, see a meaning and reading, and produce the character from memory.
- Check against a stroke-order guide, fix any slip, and let spaced review bring weak characters back.
Kanji Write Practice does this on iPhone and iPad, with a stroke-order guide a tap away and no add-on required, free in early access. If you were using an Anki drawing add-on specifically, our Anki drawing add-on alternative covers the switch, and kanji writing practice for Anki users shows how to keep Anki for reading while writing elsewhere.
Keep Anki, just not for the writing
None of this means dropping Anki. Its spaced-repetition engine is excellent and syncs everywhere, so keep it for what it does well: reading, readings, and vocabulary. Pull the writing out into a tool that actually runs on the device you study on. You can confirm any character’s form on Jisho. The result is a setup that works the same on your desk and on the train, instead of a writing workflow that only exists on one computer.
What about handwriting input fields on a card?
There is a partial workaround worth knowing. Both AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid can show a card that includes a handwriting or drawing area through card-template HTML and JavaScript, rather than an add-on, and some shared decks ship with one. This does run on mobile, because it lives in the card itself, not in a desktop add-on. The catch is that it is fiddly: you are maintaining custom card templates, the input area behaves differently across the apps, and grading is still your own eyes, not automated. For a tinkerer who enjoys building card templates, it is a viable route and keeps everything inside Anki. For most people, it is more setup and upkeep than it is worth, and a purpose-built writing app gets you producing characters in seconds with a stroke-order guide already there. The honest split is this: if you love configuring Anki and want one app for everything, build a handwriting template; if you want to just practise writing on your phone today, use a writing-first app and leave Anki to do the reading. Either way, the thing that builds the skill is the same, producing the character from memory rather than recognizing it.
Sync keeps your reading, not your writing tool
It helps to understand what does and does not sync. Your notes, cards, scheduling, and review history travel across desktop, AnkiMobile, and AnkiDroid through AnkiWeb. What does not travel is anything an add-on adds, because that code lives only on the desktop. So your reading reviews follow you everywhere, which is genuinely useful, while an add-on-based writing setup does not follow you at all. That asymmetry is the whole reason to split writing into a native mobile app and leave reading in Anki: you end up with a setup that is whole on every device, instead of one that is only complete at the one computer where the add-on runs.
