API:Move

This page is part of the MediaWiki action API documentation.

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MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.12

Token

To move a page, a move token is required. This token is equal to the edit token and the same for all pages, but changes at every login. Moves tokens can be obtained via action=tokens with type=move (MW 1.20+), or by using the following method:

Obtaining a move token

api.php?action=query&prop=info&intoken=move&titles=Main%20Page [try in ApiSandbox]

Moving pages

Pages can be moved with action=move.

Parameters

• from: Title of the page you want to move. Cannot be used together with fromid
• fromid: Page ID of the page you want to move. Cannot be used together with from
• to: Title you want to rename the page to
• token: A move token previously retrieved through prop=info. Take care to urlencode the '+' as '%2B'.
• reason: Reason for the move (optional)
• movetalk: Move the talk page, if it exists
• movesubpages: Move subpages, if applicable
• noredirect: Don't create a redirect. Requires the suppressredirect right, which by default is granted only to bots and sysops
• watch: Add the page and the redirect to your watchlist. Deprecated. Use the watchlist argument (deprecated in 1.17)
• unwatch: Remove the page and the redirect from your watchlist. Deprecated. Use the watchlist argument (deprecated in 1.17)
• watchlist: Unconditionally add or remove the page from your watchlist, use preferences or do not change watch (see API:Edit)
• ignorewarnings: Ignore any warnings

Example

Note: In this example, all parameters are passed in a GET request just for the sake of simplicity. However, action=move requires POST requests; GET requests will cause an error. Moving Main Pgae (sic) and its talk page to Main Page, without creating a redirect

api.php?action=move&from=Main%20Pgae&to=Main%20Page&reason=Oops,%20misspelling&movetalk&noredirect&token=58b54e0bab4a1d3fd3f7653af38e75cb%2B\ [try in ApiSandbox]

Possible errors

All errors are formatted as:

<error code="code" info="info">

Code	Info
nofrom	The from parameter must be set
noto	The to parameter must be set
notoken	The token parameter must be set
cantmove-anon	Anonymous users can't move pages
cantmove	You don't have permission to move pages
cantmovefile	You don't have permission to move files. Note: If file moving is disabled altogether, you'll get an immobilenamespace error instead
selfmove	Can't move a page to itself
immobilenamespace	You tried to move pages from or to a namespace that is protected from moving
articleexists	The destination article already exists and is not a redirect to the source article
protectedpage	You don't have permission to perform this move
protectedtitle	The destination article has been protected from creation
nonfilenamespace	Can't move a file to a non-file namespace
filetypemismatch	The new file extension doesn't match its type
mustbeposted	The move module requires a POST request

NOTE: The Move API uses two additional error handling methods when the page move succeeded, but the talk page or sub-page move failed:

• Talk page: The relevant error will be returned in the talkmove-error-code and talkmove-error-info fields.
• Subpages: The relevant error will be returned as a standard code/info structure under the subpages key.