Import vs sweep private key in Electrum

[mpufatzis]

What is the difference between importing and sweeping the keys?

[ranochigo]

Importing the keys means that you will be able to spend the Bitcoins from your address, just like how you would with your current wallet.

Sweeping the keys means that the coins in the address will be sent to an address in Electrum that is covered by the seed.

The latter is a better way since you just have to keep the backup of the seed to get all your coins. In addition, it uses a unique change address everytime and definitely offers way more privacy.

[aplistir]

What is the difference between importing and sweeping the keys?

Also. When sweeping you are making a transaction to a new address, and you have to pay a small transaction fee. And it could take a while.

When you import you do not have to pay or wait anything.

[Lucius]

What is the difference between importing and sweeping the keys?

Just to add something important in case you want to import your address/private keys in Electrum.If some of address you import in Electrum have large number of inputs then you will face the problem when you try to spend that coins,Electrum just freeze in that case.Even import private keys is free, you may encounter this problem and also that address is not secured with seed.In general it is better to use sweep option,you need to pay transaction fee but you can send coins from all addresses at once to new generated address wich will be secured with seed.

[Coin-Keeper]

My take on this.

Import -- > Pro = fast, cheap (no transaction fee)
Import -- > Con = pure trouble maker for new people, original Electrum wallet seed doesn't recover automatically

Sweep -- > Pro = full recovery using original seed, completely new address, no old transaction speed bottlenecks as mentioned in posts above
Sweep -- > Con = have to pay for a transaction fee, must wait for sweep transaction to be confirmed.

Really, to me its a no brainer but speed is usually not the main thing where my coins are concerned.  I believe I would always Sweep over Import.

[xryan]

I want to (Transfer) sweep BTC from Electrum Wallet A to Electrum Wallet B

a) I export the private keys in wallet A

      - I tried CSV, JSON, copy and paste

b) I use "sweep" in wallet B (I have used all three ways from a)

However, the sweep button stays grayed out, i.e. is not functional.

What am I missing?

[Abdussamad]

why not just send bitcoin from wallet a to an address in wallet b?

[Lucius]

I want to (Transfer) sweep BTC from Electrum Wallet A to Electrum Wallet B

a) I export the private keys in wallet A

      - I tried CSV, JSON, copy and paste

b) I use "sweep" in wallet B (I have used all three ways from a)

However, the sweep button stays grayed out, i.e. is not functional.

What am I missing?

In general that sweep button stay gray in case if private key is not valid or it is encrypted so Electrum just does not recognize private key.There also can be problem with sweep if you have some unconfirmed transactions connected with that private keys.Since you want to transfer BTC to new wallet if sweep option is not work just send them from wallet A to wallet B like Abdussamad advised you.

[xryan]

I just wanted to try out the sweep in a "safe" environment. Maybe it doesnt work within E.

[OJAPPLE]

May I ask, what happens to the BTC if I only imported the private keys to Electrum?  Will they be safe after I made claim on the new forked coins?  Should I sweep them to Electrum instead?  Thank you.

[Abdussamad]

if you only import them then those private keys will still control your bitcoins. if the fork clients are malware then they can steal your btc too. so it is best to sweep your coins before you go putting those private keys into fork clients.