Getting started with GuruOwl
From signup to your first review session in about five minutes — create an account, turn a PDF into flashcards, and study them with spaced repetition.
GuruOwl turns your study material into flashcards, then coaches you through remembering them. Here's the five-minute path from zero to your first review.
1. Create an account
Sign up from the login page. Web signup includes 50 credits. Estimated generation: 1 credit/page for Standard or 3 for Expert; check the estimate before confirming. No card required.
2. Turn your first document into a deck
Upload a PDF up to 50 MB in Materials. Web text-card generation requires a selectable text layer. For image-only scans, run OCR in a scanner or PDF editor and upload the searchable PDF. Creating an account does not unlock full-document OCR. Already have an Anki deck? See Anki import/export.
Standard generation costs 1 credit per page. For dense, high-stakes material there's an Expert tier at 3 credits per page that runs multiple passes and can generate image-occlusion cards from labeled diagrams.
Standard streams interactively; keep the page open. Expert runs as a background job and can continue after navigation. Check job status and the credit ledger before restarting; do not assume every interrupted attempt is complete or refunded.
3. Set a goal (optional, recommended)
A goal is what you're studying for — an exam, a language level, an interview — with an optional target date. Materials filed under a goal drive that goal's daily plan, and the Today page focuses on one goal at a time.
4. Do your first review
Open Today and hit the plan's main button. New cards are introduced first; from then on, spaced repetition takes over — each card comes back right before you'd forget it, scheduled by FSRS. A few minutes a day is the whole game.
5. Take it with you
For the Guru iOS app, verify the same account, sync entitlement and individual deck status on both devices. Account linking alone is not proof of content sync; see iOS sync. Keep a backup before switching accounts or replacing data. Already have an Anki deck? See Anki import/export.