You'll know what Home shows after days or weeks away, how to work through the cards that piled up, and what happened to your streak.

What you need

• A Vocards account with decks you studied before the break.
• Nothing to switch on. Cards keep their review dates while you're away, and every overdue card waits for you.

1. Read the due count on Home

Home shows how many cards are due across your active decks, on the start card at the top. Every card whose review date has passed is counted, however long ago that was. There's no cap, so after a few weeks the number can be large.

The start card reads Continue Learning when you also have new cards waiting, or Review when everything on it is due cards. Each deck shows its own due count.

A session you left open before the break isn't on Home anymore. A session is closed at the first 4:00 AM after you started it, and the answers you gave in it were saved. Unfinished sessions only lists sessions from the current study day.

Note: On iOS and Android, Home has the same start card. Its pill shows the number followed by due.

2. Work through the backlog one session at a time

Start a session from Home as usual. If you have more than one active deck, pick one under Choose a deck.

A session still holds your Cards per session number of cards, 10 unless you changed it. It doesn't try to clear the whole backlog at once. It fills its places in this order:

1. Due cards, the ones you last reviewed longest ago first.
2. New cards, only if places are left.

So while a deck has more cards due than a session holds, its sessions bring in no new cards. New cards come back on their own once that deck's due pile is smaller than a session.

When you finish a session, the due count on Home goes down. A card you missed three times in that session stays due and comes back in a later session. Start another session when you're ready.

Note: A day counts toward your streak once you've answered at least 5 different cards that were due or new. One session of 5 or more due cards is enough.

Make sessions smaller or bigger

On web, open Settings from your account menu. On iOS and Android, open the Settings tab. Change Cards per session. It goes from 5 to 100.

A smaller number gives you a session you can finish on a busy day. A bigger one clears more of the backlog in one sitting. Neither changes when cards are due.

3. Expect some cards to lapse

After a long break you may miss words you used to know. When you answer one of them with Not yet (Not yet on iOS and Android), it drops to Learning and its schedule starts over. The session summary lists it under Lapsed.

How Vocards decides when a word comes back explains what a miss does to a card.

A word you still know after a long time away gets a small boost. If its last gap was 7 days or more, you're at least twice that gap late (20 days past its date for a 10-day gap), and you get its flashcard right the first time, its gaps grow a little faster from then on. The next gap still comes from the card's last gap. The length of your break doesn't stretch it.

4. Check your streak

After a break of two or more days, your streak is back at 0. On Home, the streak card says so and shows your record: "Your best is 23 days – start another."

Click the streak card to open Your Streak. At zero it shows Start a new one today., your Total days studied and your Longest streak. Neither of those two numbers goes down when a streak ends.

On web, if you studied at least once in the last 30 days, the window also says how many of those days you studied, for example "You have studied 12 of the last 30 days."

What rest days did while you were away

A rest day covers one missed day and keeps the streak going. It can't cover two missed days in a row, so a break of two or more days ends the streak whatever you had in hand.

• Missed one day, rest day in hand: your streak is still there. Study today to keep it going.
• Missed one day, no rest day: the streak ended.
• Missed two or more days: the streak ended.

Rest days belong to a streak. When it ends, they go with it, so a new streak starts with no rest days in hand. You earn the first one after 2 days of studying, the next after 3 more, the third after 4 more. In the same window, click the row of rest-day circles to open Rest days, which explains how they work.

Note: On iOS and Android, tap the streak card on Home. The window shows Start a new one today., Total days studied, Longest streak and your rest days. The last-30-days line is on web only.

5. Pause decks you're not coming back to

If some decks hold words you don't want to review right now, pause them. A paused deck's cards are left out of the due count on Home and out of the sessions you start there. Your progress in the deck is kept.

• On a deck page on web, click Pause Learning. On a narrow screen the button shows only a pause icon.
• In your deck library, open the deck's menu and choose Deactivate.
• On iOS and Android, open the ⋯ menu on the deck screen and tap Deactivate.

A paused deck's cards still pass their review dates. When you bring the deck back with Resume Learning or Activate, its overdue cards show up on Home again.

What you'll see

• The due count on Home goes down with each session. New cards come back into a deck's sessions once it has fewer cards due than a session holds.
• Your streak card counts up again from your first day back.

If something goes wrong