Help:Import

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Importers, transwiki importers, and administrators can apply two types of import using the Special:Import page:

• Transwiki import or interwiki import: import pages directly from another WMF wiki; the settings of the destination wiki determine which source wikis are enabled; MediaWiki:Import-interwiki-text (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) appears. Transwiki imports can be performed by administrators and transwiki importers.
• Importupload: import a file in a special XML format produced by exporting pages from another wiki; MediaWiki:Importtext (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) appears. This type of import is restricted to importers and stewards.

Others apply Wikipedia:Requests for page importation.

After importing, you would be able to see any new pages that were in the file. Where pages had the same name as existing pages in the wiki, the pages will be overwritten by the content from the file if the timestamp of the article is newer. If an error occurred during the import, e.g. due to badly formatted XML in the file, then you may find the import is partially complete (some pages imported, but not all). Since pages are overwritten, attempting the import again should not be a problem.

If you included history information when you performed the export, then you should also see information about the edits in the 'history' of the imported pages, and in the user contributions. The edits will not show up in 'recent changes' (neither positioned at the time of the original edit, nor at the time of importing).