Help:Moving pages

This article is about how to move pages and files. For for the policy on when to move pages or files, see Tesseract:Criteria for speedy move.

Moving pages or files on the wiki is usually equivalent to renaming them. While any registered users can move pages only custodians and administrators can move files.

Pages

Moving (renaming) a page means giving it another name. This is done by using the "move" action of tab "More" at the top. The tab is not visible if you are not logged in. Then simply enter the new name and click "Move page". Normally you would want to leave the "Move associated talk page" option ticked.

If you move page "A" to a new title "B", this operation will do the following:

• Renames the title of page "A" as "B"
• Renames all the editing history of page "A" as of page "B" as well
• Creates a new page "A", whose content is a redirect to page "B"

The second point is important. By using the "Move" feature, you also move the editing history, which is desirable in most situations. The editing history allows people to see how the contents of the page were built up, and who contributed what. If you move contents around by copying and pasting (not using the move feature), you do not achieve this

When the move operation leaves behind a redirect (see Help:Redirects), it should not result in any broken links except the possibility of double redirects – that is, pages redirecting to "A" which becomes a redirect itself. You might want to hunt down pages or other redirects which link in to the redirect, and change their text to link directly to the new title. The "What links here" feature, which can be used through the link in the Tools (at bottom of the sidebar) is useful when doing this.

As with almost all wiki editing, a move operation can be reversed (by any user). To reverse a move operation, simply move the page back, e.g. move page "B" back to "A".

Custodians and Administrators can optionally move a page without creating a redirect. This is particularly useful when undoing a move. An additional check box will appear when one needs to move a page which is checked by default (Leave a redirect behind).

Custodians and Administrators can also move subpages when moving pages by using the Move subpages checkbox.

Technical information

Moving a page causes the page title to change while the page id remains the same. If a redirect is created under the moved page's former page title, it will have a new page id.

Pages can be moved using Special:MovePage (SpecialMovepage) or action=move (ApiMove).

See also

• Tesseract:Criteria for speedy move for the policy on moving pages and files
• Wikipedia:Moving a page Wikipedias page on moving pages
• Manual:Page moving