Wikipedia:Copying watchlist to new username

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When changing your username through creating a new username and redirecting your old username to the new one, your new username will not have your old username's watchlist. The standard way to transfer your watchlist to the new username is the following:

  1. Log into your old username.
  2. Click on "my watchlist" at the top of the page. This will bring you to your old username's watchlist page.
  3. Click on "display and edit the complete list". This will display a complete checklist of the pages you are watching.
  4. Open a second window or tab in your browser. Do not close the checklist window or tab.
  5. In the second window or tab, log out from your old username and then log into your new username.
  6. In the checklist window or tab, right-click on the first listed page you want to transfer and choose to open the link in a new window or tab. Do not left-click or you will lose the checklist and you will have to log into your old account again to get it back. The page will appear in a new window or tab.
  7. Click on the "watch" tab for the page. This will add the page to your new username's watchlist and display confirmation of the addition. You may close the page's window or tab.
  8. Repeat the previous two steps for each listed page you want to transfer.
  9. Once all the pages are transferred, you may close the checklist window or tab without having to log off the old username. It will already have been logged off in step 5.

An alternative to the first six steps is to export the old watchlist and use the export to build a new subpage under the new account, then follow steps 7 and 8, above, or to install the export script on both accounts and use it to import the new watchlist, by copying and pasting it across.